Prelude
by NeoVenus22
Summary: X3 spoilers. After the Last Stand, Bobby's relationships and his status at Xavier's School are all changing. How will he cope with what's in store? BobbyRogue [complete]
1. I

Disclaimer: anyone I gave a full name for is property of Marvel. Some of the students I made up myself; any similarities to already-existing Marvel characters are coincidental and unintentional. 

Spoilers: this takes place right after X3, so nothing is safe.

Author's note: for the sake of argument, in this story, I'm placing Bobby (and by extension, Rogue and John) at 20/21 following the events of X3. That's probably a stretch, but it's no worse than the math they give us for the films, and it works for me for the canon of this story.

Dedication: to Sarafu, who put up with my gripes and my "hey will you read this section?" ten times a day. And to Lena: "Don't do it Wolverine!"

* * *

"You're back," observed Bobby.

Rogue was sitting on his bed when he opened the door, hands folded in her lap, waiting for him. She got up slowly, something odd reflected in her eyes. Bobby realized instantly that she'd actually gone through with it. "I'm sorry," she said. "I had to."

"This isn't what I wanted," he told her.

"I know," she said. "It's what I wanted." She smiled up at him, a tentative, fearful smile, and he felt something brushing his hand. He realized it was her fingers, her bare fingers, entwining cautiously in his. The both of them stared at their clasped hands, their lives suspended in a certain forever, waiting for the stinging pull. But it didn't come. "Bobby," she said quietly, "shut the door."

"Rogue..." But he knew better than to challenge the look he recognized in her eyes. The exercises where she had been team leader, she'd issued commands with a similar look. It was one that suggested she had an inkling of insight about what she was doing, and should be trusted.

While Bobby, with good reason, couldn't always trust Rogue's powers, Rogue he trusted implicitly.

They approached each other slowly, like two dogs who circled and sniffed as they met for the first time. Memories of their first kiss, their only kiss, danced through his mind. Those had been the happiest seconds of his life, where he had at last felt connected to Rogue in a way that their longest conversations and most brutal battles could not manage.

At twenty-two, Bobby had had only two girlfriends, and little to show for it. While he'd still been at high school, he'd met Laney Allen, with whom he'd shared a handful of clandestine kisses at school dances and class trips. She'd broken up with him when his secret was revealed. Shortly thereafter, he'd transferred to Xavier's School, where he had flirtations of flirtations, too concerned at the time with his newfound mutant status too even begin thinking about the opposite sex. He graduated to having actual flirtations, this time with Jubilee, when Rogue came. And that had been the end of it, because before he knew what hit him, he'd met Rogue. Marking, of course, the end of his physical romances. He sacrificed a lot by falling in love with her, but he never had regrets. His heart stopped when he was around her, and it had nothing to do with her powers. All she had to do was smile for him to feel complete.

Completion took on a new meaning, however, one that he'd never thought possible. She was kissing him. Bobby tensed in anticipation, because as much as he remembered the joy of that kiss, he could not forget the searing pain. That initial memory did so much for his life as a mutant: so he could understand the horrified expression on people's faces as they turned gray; so he knew what to expect when he and Rogue plotted tactics in the Danger Room. He liked being prepared, it (among other things) had earned him the nickname of "Boy Scout" with John. That usual preparedness was useless now, leaving him in a state of suspended animation. There was no payoff; the pain he expected never came. Rogue touched his hair, Bobby wrapped his arms tightly around her, and the pain never came. The fear was gone, and the rush he felt was one of relief and delight. He was finally kissing the woman he loved.

They continued until Bobby finally had to step back to gasp in air. He thought the occasion warranted a comment, but refrained from making one, because Rogue was staring at him with expectation, near to the point of desperation, and frankly, who was he to argue.

After what seemed like ages, although well-spent, Rogue broke away to pull at the bottom hem of her shirt. Bobby swallowed uncomfortably. "Rogue," he began, "I don't think I'm..."

"No, nothing like that. I just want you to touch me," she said. "It's been so long, I don't remember what it feels like. I just want to _feel_ again."

Her skin was pale. Of course she would be pale, because exposure of skin to the sun meant exposure of skin in general, which was a no-no. Bobby felt uncomfortable watching her, even though he had done it before. She didn't know about that time, though, and he still felt a prick of guilt about it. Regardless, though, this time she was watching his reactions with eagle eyes. He felt like he was taking a test in the Danger Room, where every single thing he did was monitored and graded. Every blink, every telltale sign of emotion, every action was scrutinized. It made what should have been a very pleasurable act excruciating. If he studied her form too hard, she might get offended. If he didn't study hard enough, she might get offended. He was at a loss for what to do.

Rogue stood before him in her black bra, and Bobby swallowed hard, depraved for so long, but inexperienced and scared as a result. Anxious energy flowed through him more quickly than his own blood, and the only cure to this he could find was to simply pull her to him. He could smell her shampoo, and felt her skin beneath his hands, anchoring him. The ever-present fear of her powers also helped sober the hyperactive nature of his mind. But though he was in a position where death was imminent were Rogue's powers in full effect, nothing happened.

This time Bobby initiated the kiss: grateful but uneasy, eager but apprehensive. Ultimately, though, a long-repressed passion dictated their next few moments.

Bobby was still exhausted from the battle, and Rogue as well was tired from her own journey. When they finally curled against each other in Bobby's bed not long thereafter, though they craved intimacy, only weariness motivated them. At the moment, both of them were too scared to progress their relationship any further that night.

The concept of losing one's powers, totally and completely, was unfathomable to Bobby. There were so many facets to his powers alone, that he didn't know how he could survive without them. Rogue, on the other hand, had very few high points to her own powers. He was filled with questions about Rogue getting cured, but he didn't think she'd be up to the onslaught. Still, he couldn't help wondering, aloud, "Do you still hear them? The voices, I mean." Rogue used to tell him about how sometimes she could hear the voices of the people that she absorbed. Bobby and Logan had both offered themselves up willingly, acts of sacrifice. Magneto had forced his powers on her. John she had taken by surprise and he had resented her for it ever since. Piotr, Jubilee, Kitty, and Storm were in there as well, from Danger Room sessions. David, the only other boy she had ever kissed, powerless but still with memories that Rogue now shared. That was a lot of people to carry in one person's head.

"They're gone," she said. "I can remember my childhood again. I can remember it, and I know it's mine." She curled closer next to him. "I'm me again, Bobby. I'm one hundred percent me again."

"I'm glad," he told her honestly. He waited patiently in the darkening room for her to say anything more, but she didn't, merely held still until he realized she had fallen asleep. Bobby then contented himself with studying the stretch of her back, memorizing the shape of her shoulders, smoothing his fingers over her stomach and arms, reveling in the weight and warmth of her, and marveling at the utter realness of the situation, until at last he lulled himself into a relaxing sleep.

* * *

"Hey Frosty," the bark accompanied the bang on the door, "get up. Class started ten minutes ago."

The bang came louder, more flesh than merely a fist, and Bobby groaned exhaustedly, "I helped save the world. I'm taking today off."

"Doesn't work that way, bub," was the answering growl, punctuated by the door swinging open. "You don't get to—" Logan stopped dead, taking in the sight of Bobby, in bed, his arm around a half-naked Rogue. Logan blinked.

Bobby scrambled to an upright position, upsetting Rogue, who murmured in drowsy protest. She awoke seconds later, and gasped out loud when she saw a rigid Wolverine standing at the foot of the bed. She yanked the covers up to her chin, horrified, and barely managed to choke out, "Logan."

"So you got the cure," he observed.

"Nothing happened," she assured him hastily.

Logan eyed them, then said briskly, "Nothing's supposed to. That's why it's called a cure." He tapped his foot against the leg of the bed. "Clean up. Class started fifteen minutes ago." It was only with his exit that both Bobby and Rogue let out the collective breath they'd been holding.

After that, Bobby finally dared to glance over at his girlfriend. "Hi."

"Hi," she said, the accent that came to life under stress, in addition to her lingering grogginess, making her voice thick.

"Did you sleep okay?" he asked. His mind ran with a thousand bad pick-up lines and jokes that John used to assault him with regularly, including a choice few about how she wanted her eggs in the morning. But, as Rogue had so astutely put it, nothing had happened, so the voice in his head was being inappropriately inappropriate.

The smile Rogue gave him nearly broke his heart with its raw beauty. "I slept wonderfully," she said.

"Me too," Bobby said, his misgivings going out the window.

But they returned moments later, after he and Rogue had dressed for class and were headed to the sunroom where Miss Munroe was holding her weekly history lesson. They passed by a classroom just as a lecture was getting out, and suddenly, the air suffocated with tension.

"Why are you even here, Rogue?" said a girl whose name Bobby didn't know. "You're not one of us."

"You're taking up space that could go to deserving mutants," said a boy.

"Get out of here," hissed a third student.

Bobby instinctively clutched Rogue's hand. The kept their heads up and ignored the jeers of their classmates as they continued on their way. Bobby managed to make it several yards before he realized that the hand he was gripping was no longer slippery from the silk of gloves.

They slid in the back of Miss Munroe's class with sheepish looks, trying to keep low profiles, but though the class was populated largely of their friends, there were still a few glares cast Rogue's way. Bobby inched his chair closer to hers, trying to maintain a united front. He could not, however, maintain his concentration, and suspected the worst when Miss Munroe came over after the lesson ended.

"Rogue," the woman called Storm said, "you and I should have a discussion about your role at the school." She glanced pointedly at Bobby, but he stared back. He had trained with her in the Danger Room, had sat in at official X-Men meetings, and had witnessed her waffle about keeping the school open after the Professor's death. He wasn't afraid of her, and he had every right to be here.

If his conviction alone wasn't enough, Rogue chipped in with, "I'd like Bobby to stay."

"All right," said Miss Munroe, a degree of apprehension in her voice, but she resignedly pulled over a chair and sat across from her students. "Rogue," she began.

"Marie," Rogue corrected, and inexplicably, Bobby felt a pang.

Miss Munroe's eyebrows lifted in an unspoken question.

"No one else at the school goes by their codename outside of the Danger Room," said Rogue. "I don't see why I should. You don't call Bobby Iceman. Besides, I'm not a Rogue anymore."

"I suppose not," conceded Miss Munroe. "But therein lies the problem. The school is a safe haven for mutants, Rogue —Marie— and you are... well."

"The sign out front says 'Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters,'" Rogue said, striking a proud pose in her chair as she started in on her case. "It doesn't specify mutants. 'Gifted' could mean anything. When recruiting time comes around, you certainly imply that it does." Bobby winced with a recollection of his own misled parents.

"Rogue, you don't need to play defense," Miss Munroe said gently. "I'm not attacking you."

"No, you're trying to kick her out," broke in Bobby, bridling.

"Miss Munroe," said Rogue, opting for a different tactic, or perhaps just desperate, as she spoke softly, "I don't have anywhere to go. My family disowned me when they found out I was a mutant, and even if they'd take me back now that I'm cured, I don't want to stay with the kind of people who kick a person when they're down."

"I understand," said Miss Munroe, also adopting dulcet tones. "You are more than welcome to stay here, Marie. But understand that if you do, things are going to be very difficult. We'll have to readjust your curriculum, for starters. You can't exactly hold court in the Danger Room anymore. And you'll have to share a room from now on. We're getting more students, and we allowed you special circumstances because of your powers. Obviously, that won't be an issue anymore. And..." She trailed off, chewing her lower lip and glancing at a point beyond Bobby and Rogue. "Some of the students won't react so favorably to your getting cured."

"Tell me something I don't know," said Rogue.

"Try this on for size: now that we're short-staffed, and since you'd need to change everything anyway, I was hoping that you'd consider being a member of the school's teaching staff." The lack of the usual warmth in Miss Munroe's eyes led Bobby to wonder if this wasn't all just a thinly-veiled threat. Rogue could stay, but she now had to find a way to pull her weight. Special non-mutant restrictions on the open-arms policy of the school.

Still, Miss Munroe surprised him further by gracing him with a smile. "And you too, Bobby." Bobby gaped in response, and Storm rose. "I'll leave you two to consider it."

"Teaching," was all Bobby could manage. "Wow." When Rogue said nothing, he continued, "I mean, I wasn't sure what I was going to do when I was done here... It's not easy to go out in the world as a mutant, out or not. I was hoping I could continue being an X-Man, I just never considered what I'd do _besides_ that, you know?"

Rogue bit her lip, flexing her fingers anxiously. Bobby quickly shut his mouth, regretting his need to fill silence. It was more than merely being asked to teach; Rogue clearly had a lot to deal with. Proving his theory, she said, "Will anyone want to take classes with a non-mutant teacher?"

"Well, you won't be teaching them anything about using their powers, so why not? Miss Munroe teaches history, what does that have to do with controlling the weather, or vice-versa?"

"She has no right to be so sanctimonious about me getting cured. She talks about being proud of who you are, but she actually has a power she can be proud of. Me, no matter how much I might have learned to control it, I still was dangerous to anyone I met."

"You made the decision that was right for you," Bobby said carefully. "You don't have to answer to anyone, least of all Storm." Inspired, he kissed her forehead. "I have to go to training, before Logan hunts me down again. I figure it's a one-strike-and-you're-out deal. Next time, he'll probably shish-kebob me."

His trip in the elevator down to the Danger Room was the first time he'd been alone since Rogue had broken the news. Which meant he was finally forced to confront his feelings about the situation, if he could figure out what those feelings were in the first place. Of course, Rogue being cured was only to his benefit. At the same time, however, he felt as though there was a shift in their relationship.

Bobby had to push aside his feeling of unease, getting in his training suit for a one-on-one session with Wolverine. Logan was waiting in his standard uniform of a dirty white tank and torn jeans, and he gave Bobby a once-over. Iceman instinctively feared the worst, knowing that Logan had a close relationship with Rogue, and wouldn't take too kindly to the situation he'd walked in on that morning. But all he said was, "You've learned a few tricks since I've seen you last." Technically, they'd seen each other only that morning, but Bobby knew Logan meant the stunts that the Iceman had pulled during the big stand, stuff that he'd been incapable of the last time Logan had visited the mansion.

Bobby decided to play it cool, cocking his head as if he wasn't sure to what Logan was referring. The furry fighting instructor stared him down, clearly knowing he was being baited, but finally conceded, "The ice-body thing." Bobby smiled. "That any useful?" asked Logan.

"It's living ice," Bobby said. "That's the first time I've used it in actual battle."

"Wouldn't Pyro just melt you?"

"It's _living_ ice. It's not like some sculpture at a wedding. It's ice with a will to survive." He shrugged. "Besides, as long as there's moisture in the air, I can reform."

"From anything?" Logan cocked an eyebrow, but Bobby read it as being impressed.

"Pretty sure," said Bobby. "I mean, I haven't run a variety of tests or anything."

"Do it," said Logan, and Bobby complied, focusing on lowering his body temperature, becoming one with the water molecules in the air, feeling himself simultaneously melt and freeze. Bobby had been testing himself in private when he'd realized he could form a hard shell of ice over his body. In training sessions, he'd used the shell periodically, in small doses, usually forming it over his arms in order to deflect oncoming assaults. Over time, though, he realized that with concentration, something he required less and less of over time, he could take the molecules under the ice shell and freeze them all solidly. So that he was no longer in a shell of ice, but actually _was_ the ice. He became it, it became him, and he demonstrated this for Logan now, turning his body fully translucent and frozen.

As response to the Iceman's impressive feat, Logan extended his claws, and firmly thrust them into Bobby's arm. There was a momentary stabbing pain, but as Logan retracted his weapon, Bobby lived up to his name of Iceman, restoring the gaping holes left behind with simple power of will.

This time, Logan actually was impressed. "That _is_ useful."

"Not like you," Bobby said. "It only works when I'm iced. If I wasn't, and you did that, I'd probably lose an arm." He de-iced himself, restoring his body back to its natural state.

"You want a tip, kid, don't ever tell your enemies your weakness."

"I wasn't aware you were my enemy."

Logan's face twisted into a grin, the sort that made Bobby's gut flutter apprehensively. "You might reconsider that opinion later."


	2. II

Disclaimer: anyone I gave a full name for is property of Marvel. Some of the students I made up myself; any similarities to already-existing Marvel characters are coincidental and unintentional.

* * *

Rogue was arranged cross-legged on Bobby's mattress, waiting for him when he returned. "How are you holding up?" she asked.

"I'm beat; Logan's brutal." He collapsed wearily on the bed, and Rogue lay down obligingly next to him. "You know, I busted my ass trying to save the entire human race, you'd think he'd cut me a break." And with the sentence past his lips, Bobby at last realized why he wasn't entirely comfortable with Rogue's curing, which should otherwise be a happy event for him. He felt, in a word, betrayed. Rogue had abandoned the X-Men in their time of need, after they were already short Scott and Jean, and were having enough trouble staying together as a team to begin with.

Rogue's curing was all well and good for her, but the team had needed her. Needed any sort of number, needed any sort of edge. And she had left them without. Permanently. How could he not feel betrayed by that?

"I'm taking the job," said Rogue. "I'm going to teach English." She smiled at him. "Gonna be the youngest teacher the school's ever had. But I guess it's not so much a compliment as it is desperation. You're the one they really want, being a physics genius and all."

"I wouldn't say _genius_, exactly," he answered with a teasing smile. He tilted his head, and they grinned at each other. "Teachers," Bobby echoed his statement from earlier in the day, finding it sufficient both then and now. "Wow."

"Wow," she agreed. "Storm wants to move us into the administrative wing, free up the space."

"Pete's gonna have to find a new roommate," said Bobby. Piotr had moved in with him after John had left, and Bobby was eternally grateful for the other man's support.

"It's more than that," said Rogue, her voice fluctuating slightly. "We're going to be moving into Scott and Jean's old room."

"Oh." That wound was too fresh. Of course, there had been a long gap since 'Scott and Jean' had had serious meaning. After Dr. Grey had died at Alkali Lake, Mr. Summers had been a ghost of a person, getting worse and worse. He'd been dead long before the funeral. And Dr. Grey's rescue hardly heralded the return of the person that had greeted him every day with a warm smile. She, too, was a shell of a person, her real soul trapped behind her eyes. Fighting against the X-Men without a second thought, and scaring the living crap out of the school's students. The people that represented so much to this school, Mr. Summers and Dr. Grey, had been dead for years before their headstones were placed in the garden. But even so, there was a certain apprehension surrounding what had once been their room.

"But," she said. "We're going to be rooming together." She turned pink. "Are you okay with that?"

"Yeah, I'm okay with that." Bobby kissed her. "Last night was the best night of my life. Minus the part where Logan almost killed me."

"He didn't almost kill you. He just sort of glared at you."

"I of course had to fall for the girl who has a giant, scary Wolverine protecting her."

"Says the boy who rooms with Colossus," she teased, "who is, as you'll recall, sheathed in metal, and has the relative power of an entire football team."

"Hey now," he said. "Now I room with you. And you're about as threatening as a—"

Rogue laughed. "As a what?" she demanded, but he answered her by half-pinning her to the mattress and kissing her again. He liked this, being a normal relationship, where he could follow up the banter and joking with a well-earned kiss. Or several. Several lengthy ones, with adolescent groping. Bobby hadn't been an adolescent for awhile, and it felt good to catch up.

They went at it for some time before they were interrupted yet again by the door opening. Bobby jerked himself to his feet with surprising agility, Rogue slinking into the shadow he cast so she could straighten her shirt and smooth down her hair. But it was only Piotr, twirling a basketball effortlessly on the tip of his outstretched finger. It rolled out of his grasp when he saw Rogue, Bobby, and evidence that he might be interrupting something. "Oh, sorry." He coughed. "Rogue, I understand you got the cure."

"Yeah," she said. "You're not morally opposed to it or anything, are you?" Bobby felt a twinge of guilt for his earlier thoughts. Rogue was having to deal with enough. While he was being attacked by Logan in the Danger Room, she was being attacked by her fellow students and people who were once their friends.

But Piotr smiled at her. "No," he said. "If I was in your position, I'd do it, too."

Rogue's face flushed with relief and gratitude.

"Although," Piotr continued, "I will miss fighting alongside you in the Danger Room. You were an excellent teammate."

"Aw, Petey, how sweet," she cooed with Southern charm as she rose from the bed and held out her arms. "C'mere and give me a hug." Piotr eyed her bare arms with trepidation, but she only smiled. "I won't hurt you. Not anymore."

Piotr approached, and had to crouch somewhat to embrace her, but he did so with relish. Pure glee splashed across Rogue's face, delight at being able to hug someone without worry or consequence, at the casual way the skin on her arm brushed against the back of his neck. Bobby laughed. "Hey, break it up," he said, punching his roommate's shoulder halfheartedly. "That's my girl you're manhandling."

"Of course," said Piotr. He released Rogue and straightened with a genial smile. "I also hear you're moving to the administrative wing."

"Is _anything_ a secret in this school?" Rogue asked, sitting down on Bobby's bed once more.

They didn't even grace the question with an answer.

"Should I leave you two alone, then?" said Piotr.

"No, it's cool," said Bobby. "We were just going to go grab some dinner anyway. Wanna come?" That hadn't exactly been the plan, but Bobby felt bad for forcing Piotr to find a new roommate. He'd been living in a single when John had left, and now he would probably be forced to share a room with someone like Guthrie, who had the codename Cannonball and the personality to match. Bobby at least owed him a pizza for that pain.

Besides, he thought, more at ease than he'd ever been, he had the rest of his life for Rogue.

* * *

Miss Munroe moved Bobby and Rogue into their new room just in time for the start of the new semester. "It's all new," she promised them, with a vaguely glazed look that indicated that she had the same superstitions about her dead friends' room as the rest of the school did. "New furniture, new paint job, everything."

She smiled, but the reservation in her eyes indicated she still wasn't thrilled about two (former) students in a heavy relationship moving in together. Bobby figured it had to do with Rogue's lack of powers. He wondered if Storm still resented Rogue ignoring her passionate decree that the x-gene was not a disease, or merely if she was concerned that the two of them would be up to serious hanky-panky that would be a horrible influence on impressionable young mutants.

Of course, Bobby and Rogue did little to soothe Miss Munroe's conscience, taking their relationship to the next level that night and christening their new quarters. The first time was embarrassingly, but not unexpectedly, awkward and fumbling. The next few times were far more respectable, as they stayed up all night to rectify the situation.

The following breakfast, they were groggy, but satisfied, and made no effort to hide their sin, much to the amusement of Piotr, who sat opposite them with a smirk.

At first glance, Piotr gave off the impression of a silent Russian soldier. Tall, broad, severe, and imposing. But those who knew him knew his secrets. Piotr liked to doodle, usually cartoons of his mutant brethren, and he held a mastery of the English language that was on par at least with Bobby's own. He even had slang phrases down to a science, and never let cultural gaps hold him back from the ever-changing lexicon. Like Bobby could turn his Boston accent on and off, and Rogue kept her Southern drawl under wraps, Piotr's Russian accent was something he kept hidden, but could pull out when needed. He didn't use it then, instead feigning almost-innocence as he said, "As my teachers, you know, you're not setting a very good example."

Bobby arranged his features into a stern expression. "Mr. Rasputin, are you getting bad ideas?" he said. "Everything you do is a reflection of this school, you know, and as such, you need to project the very best image of propriety." He seemed to recall this speech, or something similar, directed at John (and Bobby on a few occasions, usually under John's influence) by the senior staff several times.

"That's not what you said last night," Rogue said, slapping her hands against the table as though she were the bandleader of a late night talk show. "Oh! Burn."

"Do you see what you've done?" said Piotr. "You've turned our dear, sweet Marie into some sort of sitcom character. And not a very good one, either."

"Well, you know me, I do love my bad girls," said Bobby. He narrowed his eyes at Piotr in the best facsimile of seriousness. "Now get to class."

As Piotr mocked scrambling in fear, Rogue kissed Bobby's cheek. "That's how you start off the semester," she said. "Striking fear into the hearts of the student populace."

"Yeah, I'm gonna get it next training session," said Bobby.

"I'm taking a mental picture of you now, to remember how pretty you once were."

The next handful of days were spent adopting a new routine. Bobby and Rogue parted ways after breakfast to teach, and Bobby took training sessions in the evening. He worked himself to the bone to hone his powers, but fortunately the X-Men had only been called into action once for a minor altercation. The team was now comprised of Storm, Wolverine, Iceman, Shadowcat, Colossus, and Angel; the first three of which, in addition to Rogue, made up the administrative staff. Logan, much to the surprise of anyone who knew him, had been there for a handful of months and had yet to run off. At night, Bobby and Rogue confined themselves to their room, making love in between grading homework assignments.

Bobby trudged to the elevator after a long day, heading to his room in the administration wing, when Warren got on at the last second. Bobby had first unofficially met Warren Worthington when he arrived at the school mere seconds before Miss Munroe's decision to keep the place open. He'd hovered in the doorway, using the wooden frame to block from sight his stunning white wings. Bobby had later seen those wings in action, the span of which was wide enough to fill the entire hallway they were currently in. But in spite of them, Warren seemed perpetually sad, carrying a certain heartbreaking quality to him.

It was unusual for Warren to be in this hallway ever, because he took up residence in the top room of the southernmost tower, the room with easiest access to the sky. He had only ever gone through two sessions in the Danger Room with the full team, and preferred to spend his time wandering the mansion like a ghost, the effects of Alcatraz etched into his face. Though he hadn't battled, his last name carried far worse scars. Several of the students glared at him as much and as harshly as they glared at Rogue. They extended Warren only the courtesy and grudging respect due to an X-Man, or in Rogue's case, a teacher.

Bobby, on the other hand, found that he found a real ally in Warren's quiet, unobtrusive manner. So he asked him, "What's up?"

"I wanted to talk to you," Warren said. Bobby really had to focus, because Warren's voice was low and soft. "You're... Well, you know my dad. Everyone does."

"Yeah," was all Bobby could answer.

"That one teacher, Marie, she's your girlfriend, right?"

"Yeah," again.

"She's the only person I know who got the cure," said Warren. "And, well, um..."

"How's it going?" guessed Bobby.

Warren smiled sheepishly, barely even a flash, but still far more smile than Bobby had yet to witness from him. "Yeah," said Warren, his turn to play with the word.

"Do you know what her power was?"

Warren shook his head, the light catching his hair, combined with his obvious innocence to give him the true effect of ethereality. "No."

"When she touched people, she absorbed their memories. If they were a mutant, she absorbed their powers. She also drained their life force. Hold on too long, and she could kill you."

Warren was very good at reading Bobby's tone, no matter how casual he'd tried to make himself sound. "I imagine it wasn't easy for you as her boyfriend."

"Not exactly," Bobby agreed. "But it was worse for her. Wanting to touch, and knowing she never could without hurting the people she loved. And now she can. So, to answer your question, it's going great." Bobby chewed his lip for a moment, trying to figure out how best to phrase what he had to say. "The intentions behind the cure weren't the best, but the cure made a lot of people happy."

"Thank you," said Warren.

Bobby's smile in response was tired, but genuine. "I'll see you later, okay?" he said. "Maybe you and I can do a one-on-one session. I'd love to see what you can do. Those wings are amazing."

Warren glanced over his shoulder at them. "My dad wanted me to get rid of them," he said.

"Are you kidding?" If there was any mutation that would be the most worthy of parental pride, Bobby figured wings would be it.

"I was supposed to be the first recipient of the cure," said Warren, "but I chickened out." His lips quirked. "Get it? Chicken. I flew out the window. I love my dad, but... this is me. _These_," he lifted his wings, though he didn't extend them to their full length, "are me."

Before Bobby could comment, Warren's sad expression returned, and he blinked at something beyond Bobby's shoulder. Bobby turned to find Rogue staring back at Warren. From the look on her face, Bobby could only guess how much she had heard.

"I should go," said Warren awkwardly.

"Yeah," said Bobby, already advancing towards his room. "I'll see you."

Bobby was two steps behind Rogue entering their room, and he gripped her wrist and pulled her towards him in an embrace. "Hey, you."

"Hi," she said, but she seemed disinterested.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing. How was training?"

"Fine. How was class?"

"Fine," she said. "I decided to do a Shakespeare unit. The full works. We started the comedies today. _Midsummer Night's Dream_."

Bobby dared to smile. "Lord, what fools these mutants be." Just as Rogue was beginning to relax and smile again, predictably, there was a knock at the door. "That's probably one of them now," he said. "One of your wayward students, begging for instruction."

She rolled her eyes. "I'm not here."

"They'll find you eventually," he said, but he went to the door anyway.

Kitty waited on the other side.

He spared a tiny glance to see if Rogue was watching, but she was ducking into the bathroom. Bobby slipped out of the room and quietly shut the door behind him. "Kitty, what's up."

"I need to talk to you," she said.

Bobby crossed his arms over his chest, wondering why everyone wanted him today. "Yeah?"

"Rogue got the cure, huh?"

He didn't even know why she was asking; it was one thing for Warren, the new guy as well as the loner, to not know. But there wasn't a senior student who didn't know the whole sordid tale. Especially people like Piotr and Kitty, who were, or at least, had been, in Rogue's inner circle. "Yeah," he said, "she did."

"So you two are still together."

"Yes."

"Oh." She flapped her hands uselessly at her sides. "I just thought, you know... after the fight..."

"You thought what?"

"I thought that you and I would be, like, a thing."

Bobby tensed, his shoulders falling back and his arms tightening over his chest. He glanced up and down the hallway to see if anyone was watching. "Kitty, I'm a _teacher_," he hissed. "You can't... We can't..." He sighed, gathering his thoughts. "You're one of my closest friends, and I know things got sketchy between us for awhile there, but... I'm with Rogue."

"So you were leading me on," she said.

"I didn't mean to," he said. He felt a punch of regret, thinking of every second where he had been around Kitty and wondered what it would be like to actually get to touch someone every time you wanted to. What those moments must have meant to Kitty; what they had meant to _him_. There had been times where, holding Kitty's hand, he'd wondered if _this_ was what he wanted.

But at the end of it, there was only one face, one smile in his mind that he was willing to work for, to fight for, to _wait_ for. "Really, Kitty, I didn't mean to hurt you. You're wonderful, and I like you a lot, but—"

"But you have a girlfriend. I got it. Thanks for nothing, I guess."

He grabbed her elbow as she exited. "Kitty, come on. We're still friends."

"I wanted to be more than friends, Bobby," she said, then turned away from him.

Bobby sighed and watched her leave, wondering if their friendship was damaged beyond repair. But Kitty, he knew, was incredibly resilient. She'd recover, in time, and there was no more he could do but hope that time came soon.


	3. III

Disclaimer: anyone I gave a full name for is property of Marvel. Some of the students I made up myself; any similarities to already-existing Marvel characters are coincidental and unintentional.

* * *

Meals were held in the elaborate, restaurant-sized dining room that served as the school's cafeteria. Teachers and students mingled here, but rarely at the same table. It was a surprise to anyone that knew him that Logan was still remaining at the school, but it was not a surprise that he sat by his lonesome, at a table in the corner.

Bobby set his tray down at the table he had frequented his entire stay at the school, one that usually boasted the same crowd of people, even after Bobby's upgrade to teacher. Normally Rogue took the seat to his immediate left, but when moments passed and the seat remained empty, he found himself glancing around the dining room for her. She was laying her lunch down next to Logan, a simple smile brightening their dark corner. Bobby could not repress the tiny twinge of jealousy he felt, one that pricked his stomach lining every time he saw Logan and Rogue occupy the same space. After she'd returned from Liberty Island, so many years ago, after the remnants of Logan's absorbed personality had faded, but the bright white streak in her hair hadn't, Rogue had hero-worshipped Logan. Thought she was unaware of it, it put a damper on her burgeoning relationship with Bobby. It was very hard to compare to a man who risked life and limb to save Rogue's life. At the time, Bobby's control over his own powers was minimal at best.

But Logan's wandering was eventually enough to quell Rogue's minor obsession with him, and at the end of it, the two had become very good friends. It was clear that Logan had suffered the most of any of those who'd walked away from the battle at Worthington Labs, for while they'd come away injured, and had lost friends, and in Warren's case, the relationship with his father, Logan had been left with the duty of killing the woman that he loved. It was a heavy weight to bear, and while he held impressive resilience for physical healing, emotional healing took a lot more than he was capable of. Nor did the sudden change in staff help, although Logan had probably been the one to petition Miss Munroe for Rogue's (and Bobby's) promotion.

Bobby had no more time to dwell on that matter, because Warren, for the first time, had decided to sit down across from him. Warren chose not to go to meals, still the loner, but there was a gaggle of admiring female students who brought food up to his door. Warren was oblivious to the deliveries, still mistakenly thinking it was a courtesy of the mansion. This was the first time that Warren had made a public appearance since his arrival, and Bobby figured it had everything to do with their earlier conversation.

"Hey, man," he said conversationally, "how's it going?"

Warren shrugged one shoulder. "Okay." Bobby wondered if that was the best he was going to get out of him.

To add to the awkwardness, Kitty took the seat that was generally occupied by Rogue. Bobby looked around desperately for salvation in the form of Piotr, but the Russian was sitting at the other side of the room with Jubilee, no doubt trying to avoid the situation brewing at Bobby's table. Bobby had to grit his teeth, and blurted the first thing that came to mind, "Kitty, have you met Warren?"

"Angel," she said, giving him the slightest once-over, before gracing him with a bright smile and extending her hand for him to take. "Hi."

Warren stared at her, deer in the headlights. "Hi."

It was then that Bobby realized the dire conditions of the team, and deemed it a miracle that they'd survived their last altercation at all. It was a president-appointed apprehension of an escapee from a high-security prison, a member of the Brotherhood who apparently hadn't heard the news about Magneto and had gone out to search for him. The guy had power, but was half-insane by the time the X-Men got to him, so it was an easy job.

But the fact of the matter was that Logan was an emotional wreck; as team leader and headmaster, Miss Munroe was biting off more than she could chew; Bobby and Kitty were pointedly keeping their distance from each other; Piotr was attempting futilely to keep the peace between Bobby and Kitty; and Warren was still too reclusive to do anything with them.

"Warren's an amazing flyer," Bobby contributed. He was rapidly developing an aversion to uncomfortable silence.

"Your dad developed the cure, right?" she demanded of Warren, ever to the point. It was all Bobby could do to keep from dropping his head in his hands in frustration.

Warren blinked at the onslaught. "He funded it. Dr. Rao developed it."

"Could we not talk about this?" said Bobby.

"Why not?" said Kitty. "It's relevant. Mutants out there are still receiving the cure. Although it seems pretty cowardly to take it, wouldn't you say?" From the death glare she was sending Bobby, it was clear who the question was intended for.

Bobby said carefully, "It isn't cowardly to take it," looking pointedly at Kitty, "or not to take it," with a sympathetic glance at Warren. "Now can we just drop it? I'm sure there's lots of other stuff we can talk about."

"Did either of you watch _Wheel of Fortune_ last night?" Warren asked seriously. "That bonus round was intense."

Bobby and Kitty stared at him helplessly for a few moments, until the corners of his mouth twitched, and the three of them burst into raucous, uncontrollable laughter. It was such a ludicrous statement that they couldn't not.

From the way Kitty was staring at Warren, and the way Warren was grinning at the both of them, Bobby got the distinct impression that things were not as bleak as they seemed. Over in the corner, Logan and Rogue were laughing together. Miss Munroe stood over a collection of students, smiling, albeit wanly, at a telekinetic's demonstration of a new skill. Piotr at his table was grinning, assisting Jubilee in making a pyramid of the table's glasses.

At Bobby's own table, Warren smiled at Kitty and asked softly, "How do your powers work?"

Kitty beamed brightly, and launched into a complex explanation and analysis of her powers, one that had bored all of her friends a thousand times in the past, but Warren listened to eagerly.

Glancing quickly back at Rogue, Bobby caught her just as she was looking his way. They exchanged private smiles and vague waves, but it was more than enough for him to feel good. It would seem that the mansion was at last healing.

* * *

"You never call me Marie," Rogue said to him, over dishes of ice cream in the kitchen.

Bobby spooned himself another mouthful of vanilla, letting it melt on his tongue. His love of ice cream had been present long before his powers had made themselves known; there was a messy incident at the age of six that could attest to this. The other students always figured his regular cravings were a side effect of his mutation. As the resident Iceman, he had an entire freezer dedicated to his personal pint stash. His favorite was vanilla, which dominated the contents of the freezer, but he had also tucked away the favorite flavors of his friends: Neapolitan for Rogue; coffee for Piotr; mint chocolate chip for Kitty; a long-untouched Rocky Road for John that he just hadn't been able to throw out.

After the ice cream had turned into soup in his mouth, he swallowed, and said, "When we first met, you introduced yourself to me as Rogue." At the time, he had pressed for her 'real' name, but had grown to accept that the moniker was just as much a part of her as the white hair, or the Southern accent that flared to life when she was particularly angry.

"That was years, ago, Bobby. Everyone else calls me Marie nowadays."

"Well, I'm not everyone else. I'm your boyfriend." He licked more ice cream off the tip of his spoon. "Do you not want me to call you Rogue?"

"That's not who I am anymore. I used that name when I was a mutant."

"Right, and now you're not. Look. If you don't want me to call you Rogue, I won't."

"Please, call me Marie," she said.

"Okay."

"And stop licking the spoon like that," she said. "You're giving me ideas."

"Oh yeah?" he said, grinning. He licked it again, enjoying whatever torture he might have been inflicting.

"I'm serious, Bobby."

"Or you'll do what?" he retorted.

"I'll think of something." She rose, gathering up their bowls, and snatched the offending spoon right from his fingers. She went to rinse them out in the sink, and when she turned around, Bobby was waiting for her. He pressed her against the fridge, assaulting her mouth with his own. She murmured in weak and insincere protest, but kissed him back. He finally released her, and she gazed up at him through heavy-lidded eyes. "Bobby, we're in the _kitchen_," she chastised.

"You started it," he said, but he obligingly took her hand and led the way back to their room.

"People are starting to talk, you know," she said, the door opening behind her. They stumbled into their room, giggling like drunken spring breakers.

"Let them talk," said Bobby. Long overcome with desire, he tugged at her shirt, but she darted away from him. "Oh, come on!" he said. They chased each other back and forth around the room like small children. Rogue jumped onto the bed for safety, and Bobby launched himself after her, only to miscalculate and slide off the mattress. Rogue was doubled over with laughter by the time he finally joined her, and they lay next to each other in varying states of dress, breathing heavily and too tired to do much else at that moment. Bobby rest his head against her shoulder, touching what bare skin he could find.

Rogue squirmed, tittering. "Your hands are cold."

"No duh," said Bobby, nuzzling into her neck. He ran his fingers down the length of her torso, over her hip, and as far down her thigh as his arm could reach without him putting forth extra effort. He let his hand rest heavily on her leg, cooling her warm skin. "We should get married," he said.

Rogue sat up, and Bobby's hand fell out of her lap. He quickly brought himself to her height; she was blinking at him. "Are you serious?"

He hadn't meant to blurt it out when he had, but to be honest, he'd been serious about it since he was seventeen. The most beautiful girl he'd ever met had agreed to be his girlfriend, and the world in front of him seemed endless. He'd pictured her in a giant, frothy, layer-cake wedding dress that his mom passed down, with Kitty as the maid of honor in pink (not because Rogue liked pink, but rather because she hated it and would want to make everyone suffer), and John as best man. Of course, a lot had changed since then. Bobby's family called a SWAT team on him. John joined forces with Magneto. Rogue and Kitty had a falling out over, of all things, Bobby. But through all of it, Bobby's love for Rogue had not changed.

"I'm serious," he said. "Will you marry me?"

Rogue's fingers went to touch his jaw, hot against his face. "Yes."

The laugh bubbled out of Bobby with the force of Mount Vesuvius. He kissed her, melting inside her mouth the way the ice cream had melted in his. They were both still chuckling at nothing. "I don't have a ring or anything, but I can get one," he promised.

"That's not important," she told him.

"Of course it is," he said. "For the first time, people are getting to see your hands. Make them look."

Rogue laughed again, looping her hand behind his neck and pulling him down to the mattress on top of her. They made love, giggling ridiculously throughout the entirety of it, and Bobby, for the first time, called her Marie.


	4. IV

Disclaimer: anyone I gave a full name for is property of Marvel. Some of the students I made up myself; any similarities to already-existing Marvel characters are coincidental and unintentional.

* * *

Secrets were a rare thing at the school. So even though Bobby and Rogue had only dropped the news to Piotr and Logan the next morning, when they met for lunch two days later, the entire school was waiting to scream, "Surprise!"

Bobby laughed, closing his arm around Rogue's waist. "Who did you tell?" he whispered.

"Just Logan," she said.

"Don't look at me," said Logan, coming up to them. "I can keep a secret." He gave them a rare grin, although there was pain behind his eyes that made Bobby wonder if Logan had ever held dreams of getting married. "Congratulations, kids. And Frosty," he gave Bobby an almost dangerous look, "don't screw this up."

A few years had gone by, and Logan had grown to respect Bobby to the point where they were almost friends, but that didn't mean that Bobby still wasn't occasionally terrified of him. "I'll try not to," he said with a smile tight enough to make Rogue laugh. Logan hugged Rogue, and then stepped aside so she could get assaulted by a few of her giddy female students. Bobby sought out Piotr in the crowd, and said, "When I said I'd tell people on my own, what did you think I meant?"

Piotr only smiled.

Bobby was embraced by friends and clapped on the back by students. "Way to nail the hot chick, Mr. D," exclaimed Lester, one of his more enthusiastic students, using the nickname with which the boys usually favored Bobby.

"Don't make me give you detention, Lester," said Bobby good-naturedly. Lester, a teleporter with ever-advancing powers, had, like John, a tendency of letting his mouth get away with him. Unlike John, however, it was never with ill intention.

"Checkmate, bro," said Lester, giving Bobby the wink-and-point, before falling back into the crowd of well-wishers.

"Congratulations, my boy," said Dr. McCoy, popping out of the school's residents like a phantom, though it was nearly impossible to miss his tall, blue, furry form. He clasped Bobby's hand between his own massive ones, and pumped enthusiastically.

"Dr. McCoy, great to see you," said Bobby. "It's really nice of you to come."

"Well, I do like to show my allegiance to the X-Men under far less dire circumstances. When Ororo informed me of the party, I hopped the first private jet down."

"Oh. Well, thanks."

"I'm sure you realize what a large deal a mutant-human relationship is," said Dr. McCoy seriously. "Even if she was a mutant prior."

"Yeah," said Bobby, although it wasn't until it was uttered by the former Secretary of Mutant Affairs that Bobby began to realize how intense the situation really was. It could do great things for relations between mutants and non-mutants, which was what Professor Xavier had always wanted. Bobby felt a surge of pride for moving along the Professor's cause in his own way.

On the other hand, it could be a huge political snafu, especially considering how high-profile the X-Men were following the war at Worthington Labs. Unbidden, Bobby's gaze scoped out the whole of the dining-room-cum-reception-hall, on a reconnaissance mission to find his wayward fiancée. She was standing with Storm, who Bobby was at last comfortable referring to as Ororo, the two women laughing over nothing with all the exuberance of longtime friends.

"But," he continued to Dr. McCoy, staring at Rogue, "I love her. And when you love someone, screw everything else."

"An admirable sentiment, Robert." The older man lay his large, warm hand on Bobby's shoulder.

"No one calls me that," said Bobby, who hadn't been referred to as Robert since it had been written on his birth certificate.

"I do," said Dr. McCoy with a roguish grin. "Now go on, chat with your other guests. I won't monopolize all of your time."

In his wake was Ororo, who had made it over to him in record time to spread her congratulations. She embraced him with a bright smile. "I was so glad when I heard," she said. "I hope you don't mind the party."

"No, it's great," he said.

"Good. We haven't had much reason to celebrate around here in awhile."

"Tell me about it." He gazed around the room just as the music was starting up. The tables had been pushed aside, stacked precariously in a corner of the room, and held in place by a telekinetic. A DJ booth had been set up by Vincent, who had the odd ability to play vinyl records in midair, without the aid of any machine. The kids were boogieing, some with grace, some decidedly without, and all without much care. "I love this place," said Bobby, hit with a wave of nostalgia for his first years here, where he would've been dancing poorly with his friends, and laughing at the whole situation.

"You're not thinking of leaving us after the wedding, are you?" said Ororo.

"Of course not," he said. "This is my home. This will always be my home."

"I'm glad to hear that," she said. "I don't know what we'd do without the both of you." She smiled at him, eyes twinkling. "I mean that."

Bobby, warmed by Ororo's sentiment, found his way over to Rogue's side. She was watching the dancer's circle, which was rapidly increasing in intensity, on the verge of becoming a mosh pit. At the edge of it, Warren was just pulling Kitty onto the floor. He was beaming, she was a little red-faced, but they moved fluidly together.

"It's not fair that a guy who looks like that can move like that," sighed Rogue.

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Bobby. "I've got moves."

Rogue looked at him almost pityingly. "Oh, Bobby."

"I have moves!" he insisted.

He kissed her cheek, and pulled her onto the dance floor. Watching them, DJ Vince replaced the record he was holding over one finger with another, and set it spinning. A sensual tune flooded the room, perfectly designed for slow dancing. Several couples took the floor, but the clear centerpieces were Bobby and Rogue, interlocked and swaying. Bobby lowered his mouth to hers, to the catcalls of the entire student body.

"Dude, Mr. D, get a _room_!"

"This so wasn't advertised in the brochure."

Bobby laughed. "I love you," he said in a low voice.

Rogue still looked properly mortified from having the students 'catching' her, but she half-smiled at him. "I love you, too."

DJ Vince segued into the next song, far more peppy, perhaps intending to take the heat off of his teachers. Warren approached them. "I hate to interrupt," he said, "but I don't know anyone else well enough that I can ask to dance."

Rogue looked at Bobby excitedly. "Did you hear that?" she hissed. "Warren wants to dance with me."

Bobby obliged her with an eye roll, and she scampered off. Moments later, though, Kitty tapped on his arm. "Hi."

"Hi," he said.

"You wanna dance?" she asked. "I love this song."

"Okay."

She stepped into place, and they began to move together. Kitty had her natural dancer's grace, but Bobby was always an awkward step behind, until Kitty expelled a frustrated sigh. "You are so useless," she said. "Here, like this." She took his hands, and showed him the moves, step by agonizing step. Bobby, though trying admirably, couldn't quite match the rhythm. "You're pathetic," she said, laughing. "Marie's totally marrying you out of pity."

"It's not that bad," he protested.

"Oh yes it is. Are you guys going to be dancing at the reception? Because I'm thinking you shouldn't."

Bobby laughed. "So I take it you're not mad at me anymore?"

"Mad? I'm ashamed. You're making me look bad." She shrugged under the weight of his stare. "I was never mad, Bobby. Just stupid. You and I have been friends for so long, but you and Rogue are meant for each other. I thought... I don't know what I thought."

"I understand," he said.

She shook her head with a nearly wistful smile. "You don't, but it's sweet of you to say. I'm sorry if I screwed up our friendship, Bobby."

"You didn't. Things just changed, is all. It was bound to happen sooner or later."

"I guess."

"And speaking of change, I saw you getting cozy with Warren earlier."

Kitty blushed at Warren's name, and Bobby felt a stab of relief. "Well," she said.

"You know, those late-night training sessions," he teased, "the romance just starts to flare..."

Giggling, Kitty punched his shoulder. "Shut it, you." She reached up and kissed his cheek. "Thanks, though." She scampered off, and Rogue came to fill the void left behind, looking over her shoulder at Kitty's departing back.

"What was that all about?"

"What? Oh, Kitty and I were just tying up some loose ends," he said distractedly. "Is that Logan and Ororo?" Rogue followed his point, although obviously it was their two coworkers and friends. Ororo was trying futilely to pull Logan onto the dance floor, but Logan stood stiffly, refusing to move. The both of them were laughing.

"Looks that way," said Rogue, her voice a little far away, even though she stood right next to him.

"I guess he's moving on," said Bobby.

Rogue murmured noncommittally, and he got the impression she was no longer listening. Her gaze was straying to Warren and Kitty; to Piotr and his impressive cadre of giggling freshman girls; to DJ Vince balancing three rotating vinyl discs atop each other, with a solid two inches of space between each, creating a tantalizing beat. With the simple flick of a wrist, the records stopped in place, and without his powers to support them, fell back down into his outstretched hand with a neat stacking sound. Dr. McCoy was stepping up to the DJ booth, raising a glass of champagne to command attention.

The chatter of the students and faculty stilled and stopped, and Bobby found himself holding his own champagne flute. One of the students was weaving through the crowd so quickly that he or she was merely a rush of air, passing out full glasses. Though Bobby racked his brain trying to remember who had super-speed, he could not come up with a name, and took a sip to console himself.

"I understand that it isn't usually the procedure to do this sort of thing at an engagement party," apologized Dr. McCoy, "so I hope you'll indulge me, and in return, I'll keep it short." He was an impressive speaker, booming with all of the volume that one would expect from someone with the codename Beast, but with all the eloquence and manners of someone who was in direct contact with several world officials. "As a wise man once told me, 'When you love someone, screw everything else.'" Bobby snorted his follow-up sip, the sound drowned out by the laughter of the crowd. Dr. McCoy graced them with a smile. "In their quest for romance, Bobby and Marie have fought countless adversaries: mutant and non; in situations both mundane and severe. And their strength in battle was amplified only by the strength of their love for each other.

"In the grand span of life, my relationship with these two is a minor speck. But together, they are a brilliant spark. They transcend boundaries, and inspire all of us with the quality of their love for each other." He raised his glass. "To Bobby and Marie."

"To Bobby and Marie," the partygoers echoed, and the two teachers blushed slightly as their friends and family drank a toast to them.

"Yeah, Mr. D!" piped up a familiar voice, breaking the solemnity of the moment. Bobby laughed, kissed Rogue's temple, and took a celebratory swig of his champagne, taking in every detail of this memory in the making, so that he could carry it with him for the rest of his life.

* * *

Bobby sat at his desk, tapping his foot anxiously against the chair leg. He glanced over his shoulder at Rogue, who was sitting cross-legged on the bed, pouring over yet another essay. "I was thinking we should invite my family to the wedding," he said, the words exploding out of him before they were even a fully-formed thought.

Rogue looked up, a shock of hair falling in front of her face. "What?"

"My parents. I think we should invite them."

"Bobby, we haven't even set a date yet. Hell, you only proposed a few days ago. Why are you even thinking about this?"

Bobby dropped his red pen on the desk, where it clattered and rolled off, bounced on the carpet, and disappeared. "I don't know. I was just thinking about it."

"Your parents disowned you," she pointed out.

"Well, yeah, but they're still my family. I mean, Warren's dad tried to use him as a guinea pig, and look at their relationship now." Despite the initial nature of their relationship post-Alcatraz, the Worthingtons had come to a peaceful point, and Warren now called his dad regularly. Between that and Kitty, he was now in the habit of looking far less sad.

"Yeah, but you're not Warren, and your parents aren't the Worthingtons. Your brother called the cops to come and take you away, and your parents just watched it happen. I can see why you'd want them in an entire roomful of mutants."

"Hey, look on the bright side," he said, "at least now they'll love you. You'll be the only non-mutant in the room."

"What's _that_ supposed to mean?" she demanded.

"It doesn't mean anything. I'm just illustrating the narrow-mindedness of my parents."

"By singling me out. Thank you for that."

She was acting very bizarrely, but for the life of him, he had no idea why. "What's up?"

"I noticed you not offering to invite my parents."

"I didn't think you'd want them to come. I mean, you ran away from home."

"But you didn't ask. You know, we both got the short end of the stick as far as supportive family goes, but you don't own the patent on having a heart in spite of it."

"_What_," said Bobby, pushing his chair away from the table and rising. He stood at the end of the bed, his organs feeling like they were impacting from the tension, but he remained even more upright than usual, indignation pulling a string at his spine. "It's not like that at all."

She sighed. "Fine. You're right. I'm sorry." She didn't sound particularly sorry, but just as Rogue switched to the defensive, Bobby switched over to remorse. He was no longer in the mood to push the increasingly ridiculous fight.

"Hey, how about this weekend, we get the gang back together and go out somewhere," he said as a peace offering. "You, me, Pete, Kitty, just like old times." It wasn't until the words left his mouth that he felt a pang of something else. Nostalgia, perhaps, and regret, because old times would have included John. John would have offered up commentary, biting to the point of being cruel, which would get him into yet another argument with Kitty. Piotr would plead feebly for them to all get along, Rogue would offer up her hallmark of a scoff and a heavenward gaze, and Bobby would wish for five or ten or fifteen seconds that he was anywhere else. The things he missed.

He was so swamped in memories that he missed the irritation flooding into Rogue's face. "Great, Bobby, that's just a great idea," she said.

"What?" he asked. "What's wrong now?"

"For starters, maybe you haven't clued into this concept yet, but we can't be fraternizing with the students. Storm'll have our heads."

"What fraternizing?" he said. "Pete and Kitty have been our friends for ages. Everyone knows this."

"Some friends," she scoffed.

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Bobby.

"I _saw_ Kitty kiss you at the party, Bobby." She crossed her arms over her chest, and Bobby had to question who had the ice powers, because the temperature in the room went down considerably.

Bobby prickled with insult, but struggled to keep the rational calm for which he was known. "Marie," he began, but couldn't find the right phrase to finish. To say that he and Kitty were only friends was a true statement, but it also led credence to Rogue's apparent theory that he and Kitty were having a torrid affair.

Still, it was the statement that would get to the heart of the matter, and really, the only thing he could think of to say. "Kitty and I are just friends."

"I'm not blind, Bobby, and I'm not foolish."

"And I'm not he kind of guy you seem to be painting me as," he retorted. "Give me some credit, okay? Kitty and I were friends long before you came here."

"Is that really the argument you're going to pull?" she challenged him. "Your way of justifying things?"

Too late, he realized he was only digging his grave deeper. Yet, no matter how strong his ice powers were, he couldn't repress the flare of anger inside him. "What's there to justify?" he said. "She's my _friend_, that's all."

"And I'm supposed to trust your taste in friends?" she said. "Or have you forgotten about John?"

It would be a long, long time before he forgot about John.

Bobby had to force himself to remain on-topic, because the last thing he wanted to do was again suffer the guilt that had plagued him when John first departed. The way she'd taken the words, bending and twisting them all around like a pipe cleaner, made him wonder if she really believed that it was his fault.

"Look, Kitty's not interested in me," he said. It was a lie, of course, because Kitty's visit to him, however long ago, was proof enough that she was, or at least had been, very much interested in him. But still, "And I'm not interested in her." That was absolutely the truth. "I love you, Rogue. _Marie_," he covered. "I've only ever loved you." And that was the ultimate truth, uncontested, with irrefutable evidence and eyewitnesses to back it up.

"You wanted a girl you could touch, Bobby, I can't blame you for that," she sighed. She sounded sad, as though she was on the verge of conceding defeat. Her tone wasn't what caught the most of Bobby's attention; it was, unfortunately, the words themselves.

"Did you get the cure because of Kitty?" he demanded, his voice belying far more of his anger than he would have liked, or at least, than he would have liked if he had been in a calmer state of mind. But it was too late for that. "Did you do it because you thought I was cheating on you?"

"You two were all over each other," she snarled, her accent sharpening as the color in her cheeks grew darker. "Hell, with Kitty's intangibility, you were probably all _in_ each other, too! How do you think that makes me feel?"

"How does that make _you_ feel," he said, unable to stop the torrent of words once the button was pushed, "how do you think it makes _me_ feel? God, Marie, what part of 'I love you' is so hard for you to grasp? I asked you to marry me!"

"You only asked me after you found out you could sleep with me," she spat.

He didn't know which stung him worse, the lie, or the idea that she could actually ever believe that of him. That she could believe _any_ of this of him. "Don't go laying this on me. You're the one that left; you're the one that abandoned us. The team could have used you, Rogue! There were six of us out there, six against hundreds of Magneto's guys, six against a pile of angry humans who were all armed and ready to neuter us. We needed all we could get, and you just abandoned the X-Men because you don't trust me!"

"Neuter?" she said incredulously. "Is that what this is? Am I suddenly less of a person now that I'm less of a mutant?" She was trembling with anger. "I didn't abandon you. I was saving you all from a power I can't control. And besides, the almighty X-Men seem to have done fine without me. You're just like Storm, aren't you. You just can't support my decision on this." Her eyes were tragically beautiful, flaring with rage, yet glistening with tears she had just enough power not to shed. She rose to her feet, and with an impressive display of calm, she issued, "I'm on your side, Bobby. Mutant, not, it doesn't matter, I was _always_ on your side." Gazing down at him sadly, she turned and left, slamming the door with a distinct crash of finality.


	5. V

Disclaimer: anyone I gave a full name for is property of Marvel. Some of the students I made up myself; any similarities to already-existing Marvel characters are coincidental and unintentional.

* * *

Ororo had asked Bobby to be a teacher what seemed like eons ago, but it was only now that she decided he was competent enough to take his advanced physics class on a field trip. Although it was only six kids in a van, one of them was Lester, whom trouble seemed to find, and another was Thomas, who sought trouble out. The latter had a talent for making objects smaller than a breadbox vanish, a power he used for evil more than good. Rounding out their troublesome trio was Jennifer, a girl who could create a layer of water-resistant scales over her body, and Bobby's most outspoken student. In class, they were restrained, but Bobby wasn't about to let his students loose in New York City without an extra set of eyes on them, so he recruited Warren to join him.

Warren was more or less useless supervision on the drive to the city, as small, confined vehicles made him antsy, as well as physically uncomfortable. Storm never asked him to wear the harness or the bulky coat that hid his wings; still, Warren decided he didn't want to draw attention to them as X-Men, in case they might be targeted. He wore a light jacket over his wings, despite it being a good sixty degrees out.

Bobby figured out early on that very little learning would be accomplished on this trip, and after visiting the Empire State Building, with a brief and unnecessary lecture on gravity, he agreed that they could wander around the city, so long as they stayed together. Since Warren's powers included enhanced sight, the two X-Men fell to the rear of the group, keeping only a cursory amount of attention on the students.

"What do you think of Kitty?" asked Warren.

Bobby debated this. "She tends to work in extremes. When she's happy, she's ecstatic; when she's sad, she's miserable; and when she's pissed... Well, it's not pretty." Beside him, Warren laughed appreciatively. "She's a genius, and knows it. And that lecture I gave on gravity earlier? It doesn't apply to her. I mean gravity literally doesn't apply. But she's sweet, and funny, and she really likes you. You could do worse." He grinned at Warren's widened eyes. "That was what you wanted to know, right?"

Warren blushed. "Well... She likes me? Really?"

"Oh, come on." Bobby punched his friend's shoulder. "You're a pimp, admit it."

Warren shrugged modestly, then grinned fiercely while Bobby continued to laugh. "What can I say? When you're hot, you're hot."

Bobby refrained form saying any more, because Thomas was passing a street vendor, and looked far too interested in the small crystal paperweights being sold. Bobby darted ahead, grabbing the boy's arm and steering him away before any damage could be done. "I wouldn't," he said. "He's going to think you stole it, and then we'll be in a world of trouble."

"You never let me have any fun, Mr. D," said Thomas, rolling his eyes.

"You're allowed to have fun. Just make sure it's fun that won't draw attention to us."

"Oh, like the X-Men do."

Bobby ruffled the boy's hair. "Move along."

Thomas jogged ahead to join his friends, and Bobby fell back in line with Warren. "So you think I should ask her out?" said Warren, as though the past few moments hadn't even taken place.

"Well, I don't think she'll say no. But really, beyond that, it's up to..." Bobby trailed off. In front of him, the students had stopped and grouped together. Bobby was pretty sure the last time he'd been on this street, well over a year ago, he'd taken a different route to get there. Of course, at the time, he'd hardly been paying attention to where he was going, just so long as he actually got there. Now, he was largely concerned with getting away.

They were across the street from the clinic.

The James A. Atwater Clinic, specializing in walk-in care for mutants, was one of the first to administer the cure to mutant kind, despite it being introduced on the opposite coast, and was the closest mutant-only clinic to the mansion. This was where Rogue had gone to get cured. It was the same building John had attempted to destroy, what was most likely mere minutes after Rogue had left. In the passing months since the incident, the building had been repaired, the scorched walls stripped and repainted, the exterior redone, the blown-out windows replaced. The clinic was one of few in the country still offering the cure.

"What the hell, Mr. D?" demanded Jennifer, scales emerging to form a shell over her already tight fists. "You drag us here to get euthanized?"

"No," said Bobby, moving forward to usher his kids away. He didn't like being here any more than the rest of them did. "Calm down. We got a little lost, is all, a problem easily rectified. Come on." He had to actually exert a minimal amount of force to get them to move forward. "Go. Go. We can go to the MOMA or the Met or something. Stop gawking."

They finally started on their way again, but Bobby hung back, unable to stop himself from gawking. It was much easier to stare when he wasn't searching for a friend, or being pushed on by a crowd. But now, without the added distractions, he was forced to confront the building, in a way he hadn't before. The building, squat and unobtrusive, had essentially changed his entire life. John's act of terrorism had sparked the final war that had killed one of their own. Rogue had gone here to get the cure, and changed her relationship with Bobby forever.

A woman was approaching the front door cautiously. She was the tallest person Bobby had ever seen, easily towering over Logan or Piotr, balanced on two skinny, green chicken legs. They remained bare, but the rest of her body was covered in neon green feathers and hastily stuffed into ill-fitting clothing. If there was a textbook definition of mutation, Bobby thought she'd be a good example.

She seemed to sense Bobby looking from across the street, and she hunched her shoulders and rounded her back under the weight of his stare. She ducked into the building. Bobby could have stood there all afternoon and never be sure if he saw her leave, since he couldn't possibly imagine what she looked like in human form.

"When you heard about the cure," Warren said into his ear, "did you want to get it?"

Bobby didn't have to think to answer, much like he hadn't when he'd first heard the report. "No." He loved his powers, was proud of them. He wouldn't then, nor now, have given them up for anything.

"Even for Marie?" said Warren, as though reading Bobby's thoughts. "Would you have done it if she asked?"

"She wouldn't have," Bobby said. He focused on that absolute, because the truth of the matter was, he simply didn't know if he would have done it or not. If he'd do it now, should she ask. He loved his powers, and he loved his girlfriend, and it seemed that the cure put them directly at odds with each other.

The can of worms had been opened, and Warren smiled sympathetically. "Come on, those kids are going to destroy New York if we're not careful," he said by way of apology. "That, and I don't want to go to the MOMA again."

Warren's influence, or more likely, his smile, won over the girls, making the vote five to three. But when they walked down the staircase of the Metropolitan Museum of Art a few hours later, even the boys, who had wanted to go clubbing, were in good moods. Lester studied his guidebook and called out restaurant choices as they headed down Fifth Avenue. Warren paused at a vendor's stand, and returned to them moments later, proudly displaying a baseball cap on his head, the price tag still hanging off the back.

"The Yankees?" said Bobby.

"They're the best in the league!" said Warren.

"Yeah, because they drop the cash for it."

"Not a fan, I take it?"

Bobby grinned. "Are you kidding? Born and raised just outta Boston. Red Sox all the way, baby."

"The Red Sox suck," was the reply, coming not from Warren, but from behind Bobby. Bobby knew that sports rivalries were vicious, but he wasn't expecting to be attacked by a stranger. He turned around, ready to politely defend himself, but the person wasn't a stranger.

It was John.

"Warren," Bobby said in a low voice, stiffening, "get the kids, and take them back to the van."

"Bobby?"

"I'll take care of this. Just go." He glared at John, knowing that they were both remembering their last encounter, and Bobby's victory. The man calling himself Pyro was, if Bobby knew him at all, aching for revenge. "What do you want, John."

"Maybe I'm just dropping in on an old friend," John said with a dangerously enigmatic smile. Bobby didn't know if he should be worried or not: either John was lying to provoke him; or, much worse, he was following Bobby, knew about him, Angel, the students, and was plotting something devastating.

Bobby struggled to keep himself calm and alert, in case of an ambush. Not that he was particularly expecting one, because if John wanted retribution, he was going to do it single-handedly.

"Well, you've done that. Now you can just go away."

"Aw, c'mon, Bobby. Don't you want to reminisce?" Now John's expression was mocking, and Bobby wondered when was the last time John smiled for real. Certainly not around Magneto. With that bastard, every smile was political and calculated, putting on airs of respectability, so the dumbest mutants flocked to him. For example, a few well-placed words, and John had been turned into his little errand boy. But John was too trashy to ever fully ascend to Magneto's level of sophistication, so he was just a poor facsimile. Bobby was already tired of John's smirk.

"What's up, John? Are you so desperate for companionship that you'll latch onto anyone who once cared about you?"

"What, you mean you and me aren't still BFF?" said John with a pout. "I'm wounded, Drake."

"No, I believe that's leftover from the last time I kicked your ass," said Bobby, and had the satisfaction of watching all of John's carefully orchestrated expressions slide off his face. Now all that remained was pure, unadulterated John: flaming rage. "So, what, Magneto's a regular old _homosapien_ now?" Bobby continued blithely. "Where does that leave you? Wandering the streets like some lost little boy, looking for his mommy."

"Wow, Bobby, you read me just like a book," said John. "That's exactly it. Maybe since I'm just a sad little waif now, I can go join up with the X-Men. You saps will take in anybody."

Though he'd fully expected the comment, he found he could not take it. "The Professor's _dead_, John; Scott's dead, Jean's dead. Doesn't that mean anything to you? These are the people who took you in when you had nowhere else to go." What Bobby found he wanted most of all, however, was simply to know _why_. Why did John leave them behind?

"Those are the people that held me back," snapped John. "Magneto taught me how to use my power. The Professor didn't teach me shit."

"Maybe because you never wanted to learn," said Bobby. "You made your bed, Johnny, how does it feel to sleep in it all alone?"

John had since abandoned his wrist gear that Magneto had fashioned him, in favor of the old Zippo that had been his partner in crime for as long as Bobby had known him. It was now battered, no longer sleek and gleaming; likely, John had run out of resources for its maintenance. Old habits died hard, however. He flicked it open and closed, open and closed, in quick, nervous succession.

"You wanna fight me, fight me," said Bobby, icing up his fist in anticipation. "But it's not going to make a difference. I'm still going to beat you."

"You know," said John, "attitude like that, you could've been great in the Brotherhood."

Bobby ignored that particular slur, knowing that John was just looking for weak points. "I'll always beat you," he continued. "Don't you know why? Haven't you ever wondered why you never really developed your powers?" said Bobby. "Because Magneto always wanted to be the strongest mutant on his team. You could have done incredible things. But instead, you decided to play second banana to an egomaniac." Bobby knew that as well as he knew himself: that while Magneto trained mutants only to the extent that they were useful to him, Professor Xavier trained them to be the best at what they did.

John clicked his lighter shut, and kept it that way. No fireballs hurled at Bobby's head, or at anything or anyone else. For the first time, Bobby noticed how tired John's eyes were, how he had lines in his face that no man his age should yet develop.

"Whatever," said John, and started to turn away. Bobby felt a twinge of disappointment that the best he was getting was three syllables and a heel spin. Not that he was particularly desiring a fight, not when there were too many people around, and the X-Men were several hours away, and he had kids to protect. But he wouldn't have minded something, anything, that would have ended the hell of his relationship with John.

"John," said Bobby, his voice raising, "I thought you wanted to fight." He wasn't sure why he was provoking this; maybe he just didn't want John to go.

"You'd love that, wouldn't you. A member of the X-Men going toe-to-toe with a scary old member of the Brotherhood." John managed to drag the word 'scary' out to about five syllables, the obvious effort expelled to do so indicated that he was anything but. "You'd make it on the nightly news, maybe get to be a hero for once in your life. Isn't that what you breathe for, Bobby? Being a hero? Impressing your parents, your little girlfriend, Cyclops and the Prof." John scoffed. "Well, screw that. I'm not your sidekick, Bobby. I'm not gonna do anything just so you can look good."

Bobby rolled his tongue around his mouth, hoping to find appropriate words through the thickness.

"We're not friends, Bobby, we never were. We're better off without each other. Get used to it." And this time, he walked away for good.

In those last callous words, Bobby had an epiphany about John and his state of affairs. What little he knew about John's family situation came from studying files after Pyro's departure, not from anything John had willingly told him. And he could see why. John's parents had given him up at an early age, and when his powers kicked in at puberty, his foster family kicked him out. Both families had discarded him, so he joined up with Xavier. The X-Men left him behind at Alkali, so he went to Magneto's side. Now Magneto had abandoned him, and John wandered in search of the next person or cause to take him in. John was betrayed by all of the people who were supposed to care for him. No wonder he continually refused Bobby's efforts at friendship.

Bobby opened his mouth, prepared to extend the hand of friendship, and offer John safe passage back. But he knew John well enough to know it would be refused. Even if John truly wanted to return, which Bobby didn't really believe, he'd still snub a chance to crawl back. Instead, he only strode away. Bobby could sleep tonight knowing that John wouldn't be up to too much trouble. But the situation would be permanently unresolved, and Bobby might never be at ease.

When he finally rejoined the group, they were all clamoring for information. "Wasn't that one of the Brotherhood, Mr. D?" asked Lester eagerly.

"The Brotherhood's disbanded," said Bobby, although he wasn't sure that was true. No doubt there were a band of mutants somewhere, trying to find a new way to promote the _Homo superior_ cause. But at the moment, they were under the radar of the X-Men, which as far as Bobby was concerned, meant they didn't exist. "That was just an old classmate of mine."

As they started the drive back to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, though, Warren in shotgun kept casting Bobby anxious glances. He'd been at Alcatraz, however briefly, and he'd seen Iceman and Pyro fighting. No doubt he'd gotten the full story from Kitty at one point or another. But Bobby shook his head slightly. He didn't want to talk about it. Not in front of the kids.

Someday, he'd have to reopen that book. No doubt sooner rather than later. Right then, though, all he wanted to do was relish in the fact that at last, that chapter was closed.


	6. VI

Disclaimer: anyone I gave a full name for is property of Marvel. Some of the students I made up myself; any similarities to already-existing Marvel characters are coincidental and unintentional.

* * *

When they returned to the mansion, Bobby naturally had to debrief Ororo on the John situation. Though he insisted repeatedly that there hadn't been a scuffle, that he'd walked away unharmed and that he believed John to be more or less zero threat, Ororo still regarded his story with some suspicion. She'd never much cared for John when he'd been a student at the school, and after he'd left them to join with Magneto, her dislike had bloomed into near-hate, with a firm foundation of distrust.

On the one hand, Bobby couldn't really blame her. They'd been burned. But on the other hand, it was _John_. John had been his roommate since he'd moved in. They ate meals together, trained together, joked together, laughed together. They fought constantly, but at the end of the day, John was his friend.

Even now, Bobby couldn't shake that feeling.

He wasn't expecting a warm welcome when he returned to his room, considering that he and Rogue hadn't spoken to each other since their argument. She'd slept on the couch, and had been gone before he'd even woken up. But she looked up from her desk, highlighting her already dog-eared copy of _Daisy Miller_. "How are you holding up?"

"Fine," he said.

She capped her pen, using it as a bookmark. "I heard you saw John today."

"Who told you?" he asked, keeping his back to her, occupying himself with the task of arranging his materials for the next day's class.

"I heard Thomas talking about 'Mr. D' going 'toe to toe' with a member of the Brotherhood. There's only one you'd openly fight." Bobby was now organizing his pens by color. "Did you?"

"Well, you're not seeing it on the news, so no."

"What did he want?"

"I don't know. Just to taunt me, I guess. I can't imagine why." Bobby straightened his papers.

"Because he's a heartless bastard?"

Bobby turned and glared at her with all of the anger that had been stewing inside him, anger that he didn't even know he possessed. Rogue shrunk back a fraction of an inch, more out of surprise than fear. Her spine remained ever rigid, and she matched him glare for glare. "No, he's not," he said.

"So you're delusional."

"What's your thing with trashing my friends?" he asked pettily.

"Not all of them. Just the ones that try to seduce you, or try to kill you." Bobby gritted his teeth, but bit back a response. After a moment of thick and bitter silence, Rogue sighed. He heard a catch in her exhalation. "I'm sorry. It's just... John... You're too level-headed to start a fight, but I know with John, you might not be able to stop yourself."

"Are you saying I can't handle a fight?" he said, although he'd been the one to egg John on, not the other way around. He had been regretting that from the very first moment he'd opened his mouth with John, and it prompted him to be angry with himself in addition to being angry with her.

"Of course you can," she said, "but I'm just saying, John could go off at any second. You know what he's like." It wasn't what she was saying, rather, the way she was saying it, with more disdain dripping from her voice than he believed possible.

Bobby had had an extremely trying day, and he was at the absolute end of his rope. "God, Marie, you know, if you'd just stop for five minutes to consider—"

"If you'd take time to consider that I was _worried_ about you! It's one thing when we were fighting together, Bobby, but now every time the X-Men go out, I have to sit here and twiddle my thumbs and wonder if you're ever coming back. If I'm ever going to see you again. Don't you understand that? John is unstable, you can't deny that. He was always like that, a powder keg, and I think you're the only thing anymore that ignites him."

"This isn't about John," he insisted. "This is about you and me, and how you refuse to trust me. You won't believe that I wasn't cheating on you with Kitty, you won't believe that I have the John situation under control."

"Bobby..."

"Forget this. I don't want to deal with this," he said. She was already rising to go over to him, and had just extended her arm to touch his shoulder, but he shrugged off her probing fingers with increasing irritation.

He went straight to his old room, the one he had shared first with John, then Piotr, and found that only Piotr's new roommate, Sam Guthrie was there, his blond head bowed in near-reverence over a microwavable dinner. "Take that into the kitchen," Bobby said, automatically locking into administrative mode before he could stop himself. The boy's eyes reflected his disappointment and annoyance in the true style of a little boy caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar. Bobby had no time for the complaints about to issue out of Guthrie's opening mouth, and instead asked, "Where's Piotr?"

"Downstairs, training with Lo—uh, Mr. Logan," Guthrie said quickly.

"Thanks," said Bobby, and set off on his quest once more. Neither Piotr nor Logan were in their uniforms, instead having a light sparring session in their civilian clothes. Since the simulator wasn't activated, Bobby didn't warn them of his arrival via intercom, although it was what politeness would've required.

"Frosty," said Logan, not missing a beat. He knew of Bobby's arrival seconds after the door opened, his senses being what they were. Piotr, on the other hand, got the memo seconds too late, still occupied in the act of aiming a punch at Logan's head. Logan bobbed safely at the last second, and directed at Bobby, "You got a good reason for interrupting?"

"I believe he does," said Piotr with a knowing look, and Bobby wasn't surprised that the news of Bobby's day had already hit his friend's ears.

"I want you guys to spar with me," said Bobby, feeling incredibly lucky that the school's two biggest and fiercest guys were down there.

No doubt Logan had picked up on the tension radiating from Bobby in red, angry waves. He felt like someone had stuck a screw in his back, and then twisted it as far as it could go. He needed to let go of that feeling before he said anything else he regretted. And Logan, who was far more sympathetic than most of the student body gave him credit for, said, "Kid, if you've got a lot of anger to work off, I'm glad you're doing it here."

"No powers," said Piotr quickly, no doubt knowing the advantage he held over Bobby even without turning into steel.

"Whatever," said Bobby. "Just don't hold back."

Logan cocked a grin that, if Bobby had been in his right mind, he would have found terrifying. "Fair enough," he said, and promptly launched himself at Bobby.

Bobby barely had enough time to register the assault and block himself from Logan's dangerous fists. But of course, in side-stepping Logan, he ended up right in Piotr's path, and became the victim of a roundhouse kick to the gut. He wheezed at the attack, but recovered easily to retaliate with a punch that met Piotr's massive jaw.

True to nature, Logan whaled on Bobby consistently. Piotr was a tiny bit more gentle, but was far from holding back. Bobby's anger only fueled hotter as he continued, repeating every last of Rogue's harsh accusations, word for word in a series of punches.

He didn't even register the tenderness of the bruises blossoming on his body, or the ache of his muscles. He just continued to punch and kick, duck and dodge, until finally, his blood no longer boiled, but instead spilled out of scratches and gashes, leaving sticky red trails. He could no longer remember why he was angry; he couldn't really remember much of anything. After taking another blow to the belly, he bent with his hands on his knees, sucking in every molecule of air he could. When he didn't rise again for several seconds, Logan and Piotr fell out of their offensive stances. "You done, Frosty?" asked Logan.

"Yeah," Bobby panted, finding that his throat burned around the syllable.

Logan patted his back in condolence. Bobby was spaghetti in the arms of his friends as they pulled him to his feet and hefted him right to his front door, against which Logan banged like the coming apocalypse.

Rogue opened the door in her black nightgown, her face slowly slipping into horror. "Oh my God, Bobby, what happened?" The men shuffled Bobby over into her arms, and she looked at them accusingly. "What did you do?"

Logan shrugged, disinterested, and looking like he needed a smoke. "You tell me."

"Thanks, guys," said Bobby, slumped against Rogue.

"You feeling any better, kid?"

Bobby had long since lost the ability to tune out the pain, and now felt like his entire body was on fire, a sensation not often known to him. He was too tired to even put his powers into effect, and cool himself down. But the flip side of that was he was too tired to think, which he found to be a blessing. "Yeah," he groaned. "Lots."

* * *

Bobby hadn't been this tired since the war at Alcatraz, and his actual battle with John. Rogue had pulled the armchair over to the side of the bed, and was waiting for him when he woke up. She held out her hands, one clutching a coffee mug with wisps of steam rising, the other brandishing a bottle of aspirin. "Good morning."

"Did I die?" he mumbled.

"To the best of my knowledge, no. But you came pretty close. What the hell were you thinking?"

"I honestly don't remember," he said, his head pounding and his limbs begging to be amputated. He sighed, popping two aspirins, swishing them down with a gulp of unnecessarily hot coffee, and wishing for the third time since he'd woken up that he had Logan's powers instead of his own. Instead, he used his own powers to put an icy shell over his own body, the frosty cool relieving his pain momentarily. He'd been too exhausted the day before to even so much as take off his clothes, merely had Rogue help him over to the bed, where he promptly forced himself into unconsciousness.

"I'm sorry," he said, once the drugs had taken effect.

"Got a specific offense in mind?" she said, the goddess he had to appeal to in order to keep receiving the holy coffee.

"Do you want a list? I'm sure I can come up with a list."

Rogue kissed his forehead and allowed him another sip of coffee. He focused on the lack of feeling in his taste buds, to ignore everything else. "That's okay," she told him.

"I love you," he said.

"I know."

Bobby closed his eyes, for the express purpose of not wanting to see Rogue's reaction. "John and I are more alike than he realizes, you know. His thing is abandonment. His family, the system, the X-Men, the Brotherhood. They all left him behind." Tears threatened to well beneath his closed lids, and in prevention, he squeezed them tighter shut. "My parents don't want me, John left and I couldn't stop him, and then you quit the team, quit being a mutant altogether." A few tears escaped despite his best efforts, and he scrubbed at them with the heel of his hand. "I'm sorry."

To his surprise, he felt her hand closing around his wrist. She pulled it away from his face and twined her fingers with his. "Bobby, not to discredit your pain, but most of the kids here feel this way. Some of them came here because they wanted to or their parents did, but some came because they had no place else to go. The mansion is like a sanctuary for mutants with a lack of options. My parents didn't want me either. And John wasn't just your friend. It hurt me too when he left." Rogue squeezed his hand, and he dared to open his eyes, to see the sadness etched in her face. He felt a fresh wave of guilt so hot that his ice began to melt, and he had to be careful to keep from soaking the sheets.

"You're not alone, Bobby."

Bobby licked his lower lip, pink and swollen from the coffee's heat, and spoke carefully. "My feelings for you haven't changed one bit since you got cured," he said, sitting up. "I haven't loved you any more or any less or any differently than I did the day that you agreed to go out with me. I'm sorry if I ever made you feel like that wasn't true." He sighed. "But I have to do some thinking."

Rogue stared at him, and he had to look away.

"Thanks for the coffee," he said, swinging his legs over the side of the bed and sitting up, aware that he was invading her space. "I need to go to class."

"Pete's covering," she said. "He dropped by this morning, while you were still unconscious." He admired her effort to pretend everything was normal again, but just because they had apologized didn't mean they'd moved forward. "He felt bad about yesterday, so he said if you still weren't feeling well, he'd take care of it."

"He's not even a teacher," said Bobby, wobbling as he rose to his feet, more from dizziness than anything else. It had passed by the time he counted to ten, and he stripped his cold, smelly, blood-stained t-shirt over his head. He wondered if Rogue had slept next to him in bed, since he reeked of sweat and dirt.

"Be grateful it wasn't Kitty, or you'd be out of a job," she said. The only reason that Kitty hadn't been given the position in the first place was mere age and inexperience. That, and she was such a genius she would have left all the students hopelessly in the dust.

Bobby made sure the shower was so hot it practically boiled, and when he stepped out, his skin looked sunburned. He toweled off, then turned himself to ice, taking refuge in the temporary end to his aches. He still felt pain when he was iced, but in a vague, far-off sort of way, and it translated into a dull discomfort that passed after a day or two. At the moment, though, the ice only served as a relaxant.

Rogue was gone when he went back into the bedroom to change, having left for her own class. Bobby shrugged into a shirt and jeans, and went down into one of the sub-basements.

Cerebro hadn't been in use since the Professor's death. There were a few telepaths littering the school, but none of them had even half the skill that Dr. Grey had had at the lowest point of her powers. Xavier was the only one who'd been able to work Cerebro effectively. However, after his promotion, Bobby had been given the access codes to a variety of the labs that Xavier and Dr. Grey had worked in, and the lab he let himself into contained a supercomputer full of files that the Professor had taken from Cerebro. There was data that he and Dr. Grey had compiled, as well as files contributed by Dr. McCoy. Bobby settled himself in at the desk, entered the appropriate passwords and pulled up a series of files.

In the world Bobby lived in, the common definition of mutant was a person with extraordinary abilities. Normal humans had a tendency to group all mutants together, whether their mutancy was physical or visual, whether they had powers or not, whether they were good or evil. Most of the students at the school, while possessing powers, didn't appear to be mutants at first glance.

Bobby started reading a file. There was a woman in Texas who was an average human being, so long as she stayed awake. If she fell asleep, however, her entire body turned into a pyre of flame. There was a boy in Mississippi who grew at a such rapid rate, that by the age of fourteen, he was already several tons. A man in Montana who emitted a toxic gas. A little girl in California who was completely covered in an adhesive glue.

There were others with obvious physical mutations, as well: fur, feathers, and scales; spots and stripes; every color in the rainbow splashed across them. Some had three limbs, while others had eight. Some lacked facial features, and others had severe deformities.

Many of the mutants had volunteered for the cure.

After perusing the fiftieth or so file, Bobby had enough, and turned off the machine. He leaned forward, bracing his elbows against the harsh cool of the metal desk, resting his chin in his hands. His mutation was so simplistic, in retrospect. It was a power. It was, as the Professor had always put it, a gift. He could pass for normal in society if he wanted. And he was fortunate enough to have the sort of powers that were beneficial, and allowed him to be part of the X-Men.

But not everyone was so lucky, and living at the mansion had never really taught him that lesson, until Rogue came. Bobby would never give up his powers, but he was in a position to make that choice, and perhaps Rogue never had been.

He hadn't realized he'd been down there so long, until his stomach roared at him en route upstairs. He checked his watch to see that several hours had passed; he'd missed lunch. He went to the kitchen to fix himself a paltry sandwich, and took it back to his room, despite the warnings he'd issued Guthrie and countless other students about such behavior. Rogue was in class, and he wanted to be waiting for her when she returned.

Bobby was just licking the last of the crumbs off of his fingers when Rogue returned, wearily carrying a stack of papers. "You're back," she said, but didn't smile at him. "How are you feeling?"

"Confused," he said honestly, then got to his feet, grabbed the papers from her hand and tossed them haphazardly on the mattress. They were in the way of his main goal, which was to grab her to him in a desperate kiss.

Rogue fluttered at him once released. "Bobby, what..."

"When I first came here," he said, "this place was a safe haven for me. I was a mutant, and I didn't know how to deal with that, and this place showed me that there were others like me, and the Professor let me know that mutants were people, that I was still a person. And I've never forgotten him for that. He was like a father to most of us; he cared for us in ways that our own families couldn't. But the Professor sheltered us. Everyone here is a mutant, but we all have powers. I'm not saying the Professor was a bad guy, but he never really showed us the darker side. The deformity and freakishness that makes people call us a disease."

She looked at him, wary. "Is there a point to this?"

"The point is, I'm sheltered. I always thought mutation was about powers, about gifts. It never really occurred to me that it could ever be bad. I thought I understood when you came here, but I never did. I probably never will. I'm sorry. I screwed up." He sighed. "You getting cured was your choice, and I had no right to ever think it was about me for even a second."

"It was, though, Bobby. At least a little bit. I didn't get the cure because of you. I got it because I love you, because I have a boyfriend that I want to kiss and friends that I want to hug." She looked at her shoes. "If it helps, I had already committed to the cure before I saw you and Kitty skating."

Bobby felt the blood drain from his face, leaving him colorless and dizzy. "You saw that?"

"Why?" she challenged. "Was it a secret?"

"Only from Storm," he said. "Marie, nothing happened."

"I know," she said. "I mean, I don't know, but I know you. And I know you wouldn't."

He pulled Rogue to him, locking her in tightly, securing her head under his chin. He was past the point of being able to explain himself in words. Things seemed to be going his way, and he didn't want to ruin that with a poor explanation.

Rogue snuggled further into him. "I didn't think you were cheating on me."

"I wasn't. How about we agree to never discuss this again?"

"Fine by me."

"Although," he mused, "I guess fighting about stupid things makes us a normal couple."

"Weren't we already?" said Rogue.

Bobby laughed. "Look where we live, what we do. For us, fighting means shooting lasers at each other in the Danger Room."

"Sometimes, I wouldn't mind going after you with a laser."

"Be nice," he laughed. "I'm still sore."

Rogue rolled her eyes, but she rubbed at his shoulder with pity. "Remind me again why you decided to have Pete and Logan try to kill you?"

"I was angry," he explained.

She blinked at him. "That makes no sense."

"It does to me. You said it yourself," he teased, poking her arm. "I'm a guy."


	7. VII

Disclaimer: anyone I gave a full name for is property of Marvel. Some of the students I made up myself; any similarities to already-existing Marvel characters are coincidental and unintentional.

* * *

In the near fourteen months since they'd first moved in together, Marie had woken before Bobby on only two instances. The first was when they were fighting, and she'd made a point of doing so, in order to be long gone by the time he finally roused himself. She was in the middle of the second.

When Marie awoke, her cheek mashed against Bobby's bare chest, her arm slung halfway across his waist, the first thing she noticed was the utter stillness of him. She understood that he was a very sound sleeper, and marveled at his ability to maintain this skill in a building where anything could and did happen.

Rising languidly, Marie blinked away the headiness of her dream, which had involved snowdrifts, and curiously, ice-skating with Kitty. It brought to mind the weeks she had spent actively ignoring and passively despising someone who had once been a relatively close friend. Marie woke with a feeling of calmness settled deep within her gut, radiating outward, one that convinced her to forgive Kitty. After all, it wasn't her fault that she liked Bobby. What was not to like?

Smiling, bursting with affection, Marie rubbed the last of sleep from her eyes, and cast her fond gaze down at her boyfriend.

It was then that she noticed how gray he was. Ashen, really, like melting snow trodden on by muddy boots. And he wasn't merely still, she slowly realized with horror, he was barely breathing. His veins were prominent, thick lines webbing across his corpse-pallor skin.

The calmness in her gut, something she now attributed to being Bobby's influence, gave way to horrendous panic. "Bobby?" she attempted, but it wouldn't wake him even if he was in a regular sleep, because the word came out as barely more than a whisper.

Marie barely had enough presence of mind to locate a robe in the mahogany closet and fasten it around her naked form before she darted down the hallway. "Josh?" she called into the hallways, which were only just beginning to teem with life. The students turned their heads as she flew past, no doubt asking a million questions as to why one of their teachers was running through the school in her bathrobe.

Marie made it to the last elevator, the only one that went up into the south tower, the home of Josh Foley. One of the crop of "new" mutants that had started flooding to the school shortly after Magneto's defeat and the publicity of the X-Men, Joshua Foley called himself Elixir because his mutant power was to heal. When he arrived, he was an asset to the institution, where the students attempted to blow each other up on a regular basis, and no longer had a live-in doctor. The situation gave Josh arrogance without pause. Since he could use his powers on himself as well, Josh had swaggered around for several weeks, cutting himself at the breakfast table, nicking students' cigarettes to put out in his palm. Logan, who was cocky to a fault but loathed the characteristic in others, quickly put a stop to Elixir's particular brand of showing off. He saddled the kid with a weeklong detention that forbade him use of his powers, and then proceeded to school Josh in the Danger Room the next day. When Josh came to in the infirmary several hours later, groggy and aching, Logan imparted one of his succinct nuggets of wisdom: "Not all of us are so lucky, but your powers are a gift, kid. Don't waste them on stupid shit, and stop strutting around here like you're the second coming, 'cause we've already got ourselves a bona fide Angel." Miraculously, the lesson had worked, and now Josh only used his powers where they were legitimately needed.

The elevator's ascent was creaky and dawdling, the victim of pure age. Marie had never minded it before, attributing it to being another quirk of the mansion. The elevators that led into the sub-basements were the only ones that needed to work efficiently, and those were state-of-the-art. But now Marie wished all of the mansion was so lucky, and she shifted her weight back and forth on her bare feet, gazing up at the ticking dial displaying the floor numbers, praying that at the very least, Josh would still be in his room so she was spared having to search the entire estate for him.

She was an interesting vision for him to open his door to, fisting her robe in front of her chest and out of breath. Josh leered for a moment, but any words he'd been preparing to lay out for her got lost en route to his mouth when he caught sight of the horror in her eyes. "Miss Marie?" he asked, his voice taking on an almost childlike quality.

"Hurry," she said. "Bobby's hurt."

Marie traveled with Elixir only as far as her floor, but trusted him to find the rest of the way on his own. She had more pressing matters to attend to. Marie entered Ororo's room without knocking, having spent years earning that right. However, Ororo was an early riser, liking to watch the sunrise and occasionally manipulate its hues to her liking, so she was already on the balcony. She heard Marie coming, and turned to face her coworker with a question on her lips.

"Call Dr. McCoy," Marie said, the words riding out shakily, as her breath was only just now slowing down. "There's a situation. The cure is wearing off."

* * *

Nothing remained secret in the school for long. Bobby and Marie's relationship was something of much speculation, and the students who had been around while Rogue was still a student (members of the team aside), quickly let the word spread as to how the relationship came about. So when Bobby Drake was carted out of his bedroom on the brink of death, everyone could guess how it had come to be. As a result, there was a considerable crowd of people lounging around when Marie returned. Bobby wasn't there, of course, having been taken down to the infirmary where Elixir could work in private.

Marie shut her door, scouring her closet for anything with long sleeves, despite the heat wave that was already making itself known in the early morning, and threatened to get worse throughout the day. In an act of defiance, severing ties with her existence as Rogue, Marie had thrown out most of her old protective clothes. She had to make do with snitching from Bobby's closet, and she raided it with success, pulling out a heavy cable knit sweater to throw on over her. She began to sweat instantly under the thick top, but paid it no mind, because her gaze had landed on something hidden beneath the sweaters in Bobby's drawers. She pulled them out, gazing at them as she would at a long-lost acquaintance, with whom she'd parted on bad terms.

They were the gloves. Not the standard light cotton that she wore as a student, or the industrial leather she wore as an X-Man, but the elbow-length white silk gloves that Bobby had found in his Boston attic so many years ago. When mutants were under persecution, when the school was under siege. The first time she had ever kissed Bobby.

Marie hefted up the sleeves of the sweater, and slid the gloves on her hands, following the almost liquid nature of the material up to her elbows, and once again embracing her role as Rogue.

Rogue's spine chilled as she descended to the infirmary level, and she only wished it was an after-effect of absorbing Bobby's powers. The truth was, her body was tense and tight, numb with horror. She didn't know what to expect when she entered the code to get into the ICU.

Bobby's body was draped across a cot, with Josh hunched over him. The boy looked up at Rogue's entrance, his body limp, his eyes dark and spent. Ororo was hovering near, as were Piotr, Warren and Logan. Logan moved instantly to Rogue's side, her oldest friend, and the one she had come to depend on the most, even though he was the one who disappeared the easiest. He put an arm around her shoulders, and it rested heavily against the thick sweater. He said nothing, silently offering the strength he had in spades. Warren cast her a sad-eyed look, and Rogue felt a pang of guilt for bringing that desolation back to his handsome face. For months after the events at Alcatraz, Warren had shuffled throughout the mansion like a ghost, claming the uppermost room in the south turret, leaving only through the air. With work, the staff had managed to get Warren smiling again, and it broke Rogue's heart even further to see him sad now.

Piotr remained so silent in the corner, that though the largest of anyone in the room, Rogue almost didn't realize he was there. The look he cast her was one of commiseration; after John's departure, Piotr had taken up the mantle of Bobby's best friend, meaning it more than John ever had. He no more wanted to be here than any of them did.

"He's stable," Ororo said, and Rogue felt a tide of relief, one that soon went out in favor of her initial worry, because while stable was good, he was not yet awake. The only other person who had ever been a victim of Rogue's powers for this amount of time was Logan, and he was no basis for comparison, what with his x-gene running rampant.

Ororo now turned her authoritative gaze to Elixir. "Why don't you go rest, Josh," she said kindly. "You've done so much."

As Elixir passed, Rogue reached out to touch his shoulder. "Thank you," she said softly, but he abruptly wrenched himself out of her range, his steps quickening to get him out of the tomblike ICU. Rogue felt a fresh burn of shame, and Logan's embrace only grew tighter.

They left one by one, Ororo going to wait for news from Dr. McCoy, Piotr going to calm the students and restore order only the way a massive Russian with a steel exoskeleton could. Warren paused for a moment, looking down at Bobby's prone form with something eerily ethereal in his eyes, as if he truly was the Angel they dubbed him. With the right lighting, the scene could have been a painting by Michelangelo. But Rogue only felt the horror of watching Warren's hand touch Bobby's shoulder, bare skin against bare skin, and knowing that the brief, beautiful gift she'd had was gone.

When left alone with only Logan and Bobby, the two people she trusted implicitly and valued more than life itself, Rogue allowed herself to release the tears that had been gathering in her throat. Logan held her as she wept, the same rock he'd been from the day they'd met. "It's all my fault," she said, an unnecessary thing to say, but she felt somehow better releasing it into the cosmos.

"No," Logan said firmly, "it's not. That damn cure was a fluke. You couldn't have known it was only temporary. If it's anyone's fault, it's Worthington's, for leaking that thing into society."

"But if I hadn't gone and taken it..."

"Then what? Then you never would have been in a position to hurt Bobby anyway, because you'd never do that of your own volition. And if you'd never gotten the cure, then you'd never have gotten the time you had with him. Do you regret that?"

Rogue glanced blurrily over at her boyfriend, whose chest rose and fell with weak and steady breaths, as his pallor slowly receded. Rogue looked at the soft hair she'd stroked, the firm jaw that she'd kissed, the lean body that she'd embraced, the hands that had touched her in all the right places and made her feel so vibrantly alive. She wouldn't give that up for anything. Rather, she'd give up anything for it.

"I don't," she answered Logan quietly, yet another unnecessary statement, because he'd already known, before asking, how she felt.

"It's not your fault," he repeated. She remained silent and still for a long while, refusing to even so much as cross the room to be closer to Bobby, and Logan broken the moment by releasing her and asking, "Do you want me to leave?"

"No," she gasped, surprised at the vigor of her response. "I can't—" She couldn't explain herself, but fortunately, Logan understood. He pulled over a few chairs, and they sat, still a safe distance from the comatose Iceman.

"I'm not ready to be feared again," she said. "When I was a mutant, everyone was afraid of me, of what I could do."

"They're afraid of all mutants, Rogue, not just you."

"Humans are afraid of mutants," she broke it down for him. "Mutants are afraid of me."

Logan cracked a grin. "Well, I wouldn't wanna come up against you in an alley."

Despite herself, Rogue smiled. It was tiny, and fleeting, but it was enough. If Logan could believe that everything might be okay again, then she could, as well.

The two sat in the ICU for a long time, watching Bobby's progress. When he was rested, Elixir returned to try and work his magic again. But Rogue knew Bobby was going to be under for awhile. Several hours later, Logan felt the need to poke her and announce, "Hey, kid, you're a mutant again." Before she could cut in with a scathing reply, he added, "Means you're back on the team."

"There's no trial period?" she said.

"'Course not. You're one of us. Always have been." They exchanged a smile, all either of them had the energy for, and Logan excused himself from the room, leaving Rogue with her thoughts.

In his absence, it occurred to her that she had been in possession of Bobby's powers for quite some time now, and no physical repercussions had manifested themselves. With concentration, she managed to form a light coating of ice around her closed fist, proof that she was in fact endowed with Bobby's powers.

Rogue had been in excellent control of her powers right before she had opted to take the cure. But her mutancy was absolute: she could not turn off her absorption ability. And that meant that the powers she borrowed came into effect immediately. Yet Bobby's hadn't. His abilities, now her abilities, had lain in wait for her to call them forth. She had heard, briefly, ghosts of the voices in her head, as though they'd never left. But they stilled, dulling to a roar so faint it was like a fly buzzing, in an entirely different room. Her powers hadn't just returned to her, they were now stronger and she was more in control of them.

This notion began to unlock a series of questions for Rogue, but before she could sort out any of them, the doors opened, and Kitty entered. She offered Rogue a wan smile. "Hi."

"Hi," said Rogue in return, but didn't get up from her chair. She was sure Kitty understood.

Kitty went over to Bobby, bracing her forearms against the gurney, studying him up-close as she would her textbooks or a piece of machinery. If she said anything, it was in her head, but she stayed long enough that she must have. When she was done with Bobby, she went over to Rogue's side and took up the chair that Logan had vacated. They sat in silence for several minutes, far more tense than it'd been with Logan. Rogue waited uneasily for what Kitty might say.

"I liked Bobby from the second I met him," said Kitty. "He was a really sweet guy, quiet, but funny, and he went out of his way to make me feel like I belonged. He did that for everyone. Bobby never drew attention to himself, but damn if everyone in the school didn't know who he was." Kitty smiled to herself.

"He introduced himself to me the very first day I got here," said Rogue. "Asked me to lunch. Gave me a tour. It was the first time I didn't feel like a freak."

"Bobby almost dated Jubes, you know," said Kitty, and Rogue looked over at her in surprise. She certainly hadn't known that. Jubilee was friendly, but had a darkly sarcastic streak that had always made her more of an adequate match for John, if anyone. If Jubilee had any attraction for Bobby, or he for her, it never showed. "Yeah, I know," continued Kitty. "But anyway, it never happened. You came along. And it was like Bobby found the rest of himself in you." Rogue blushed, touched by the sentiment, even if she wasn't quite sure where Kitty was going. "The rest of the world moved on, but I guess I never did," said Kitty. "Rogue, I've always liked you. But a part of me wished things had stayed the way they were, when we were all a group and no one was coupled off. And I don't know, I was trying to get that back. At your expense. I want him to be happy. I want you _both_ to be happy. You're my family." Her lips tugged upwards in the facsimile of a smile. "Bobby loves you so much. And I'm sorry. For everything."

Rogue stretched her arm around Kitty. "I know."

"He'll be okay, right?" said Kitty, resting her head against the thick weave of Rogue's sweatered shoulder.

"He should," Rogue said decisively. "Elixir has been healing him."

"All right," said Kitty, but her tone held a hint of doubt. "And what about you? Are you gonna be okay?"

"I don't know." At that moment, it was all she could think to say. Having her powers back, after so long without them, was an odd sensation, like taking the first swim of the summer. Letting the water course over her, shocking at first, but familiar. She was so used to having them that it was as though nothing had changed, but she had stored up a year's worth of memories, and knew that everything had. She wasn't sure if she could go back. Nor was she sure if she couldn't.

But she had no choice.

"Thank you," said Rogue, her voice barely above a whisper, but it didn't have to compete with anything else.

"I should go," said Kitty, rising to her feet. "If the cure is wearing off..."

"The X-Men might be needed. Gotcha."

"Hey, you're on the team again now, right? You should come."

"I want to be here when Bobby wakes up," she said. Kitty nodded with understanding, and left the infirmary. Rogue knew that even with Elixir offering his healing power, it would still be several days before Bobby was up to par. But she had gotten him into this, and God save her, she was going to see him out.

Rogue rose, stood by Bobby's bedside for what felt like eons, before finally kissing her fingertips and laying them to her boyfriend's face. A few tears dripped off her chin and stained dark spots on the back of her gloves, because she knew this was the closest she'd ever get to kissing him again.


	8. VIII

Disclaimer: anyone I gave a full name for is property of Marvel. Some of the students I made up myself; any similarities to already-existing Marvel characters are coincidental and unintentional.

* * *

When Bobby awoke, the first thing he always did was turn onto his side if he wasn't already, and look at Rogue. He was always the first awake, so he was allowed this luxury. Rogue was usually nothing more than a head of hair, the comforter pulled well up to her chin. Being from the South as she was, she claimed to never fully adjust to the harsh near-New England winters. Plus, Bobby had a tendency to lower the temperature in the room overnight. It had driven John crazy; but had never bothered Piotr. Rogue, on the other hand, made jibes at his powers, but acclimated simply by cocooning herself in the comforter.

Bobby looked over, but Rogue was not there. Nor was the comforter. Nor was the painting hanging on the wall, a framed Dali print that Rogue had brought from her own room. There wasn't soft blue paint on the walls, only slick and shining metal strips. Bobby blinked, orienting himself, and knew exactly where he was. The infirmary. He was lying flat on a gurney, in his pajama pants, with electrodes strapped to his body, and a faint beeping somewhere behind his head.

"Bobby?"

Bobby turned the other way, slowly, because he was aching. Ororo was standing near him, examining an IV bag. She smiled, but it was fuzzy through Bobby's migraine. "You're awake," she said.

"What happened?" he asked, struggling to sit, but was greeted instead with a tidal wave of red heat in his head. He pressed the heel of his hand to his temple in an attempt to make it recede.

"You should have Rogue tell you," she said quietly.

"Bobby?" The pain in his head dulled a little bit, as Rogue's voice invaded his consciousness. Ororo stepped aside without a word, and Rogue dropped to her knees, putting her arms around him awkwardly. "Oh, thank God."

"Rogue, what happened?" he said. "Why are you wearing my sweater?"

Rogue's eyes, already red and tired, filled with tears. "It wore off."

"The cure?" She nodded, clearly on the verge of sobbing. "I'm sorry," he offered, squeezing her hand in his. "How are you holding up?"

Rogue shrugged. "I..." She blinked rapidly.

"It's okay," he prompted. Rogue blinked again, and he squeezed harder. "Hey. It's okay."

She bit her lower lip, sniffed and wrinkled her nose, focused at a spot on the wall, but finally, a few tears cascaded. Remarkably, she kept her voice even. "I don't want to be like this," she said. "I don't want to hurt people again. I don't want to hurt you. And I already have. It's my worst nightmare coming true. You almost died. And it's my fault."

"Hey," he said, "I'm fine." The throbbing in his head suggested otherwise, but he'd been in enough battles and training sessions to know that would pass sooner or later. "You can't possibly think that the cure wearing off is your fault."

"Logan said the same thing, but..."

"See? And you always listen to Logan." She opened her mouth to protest, though why, he couldn't fathom, because she did always listen to Logan. He cut her off. "I woke up, right? Waking up is the most important part. Forget about me."

Rogue stared at him. "My powers are stronger," she said. "I'm scared."

Bobby looked at her, and though he was a little heady still, everything seemed very clear to him. "I'm not."

Her smile was enough to cut through the remaining ache in him, and her hand fluttered to his chest, running around the contours of the machinery strapped to him with uninterrupted silken touch. It was making him stir in a way he was going to have to relearn to repress.

"Hey," he observed, trying to focus on anything else, "those are my grandmother's gloves."

"I found them in the drawer." She looked down at them, pushing the sleeves of the sweater up slightly so she could get a better look at them. "You kept them," she said.

"Yeah. I thought you could wear them for the wedding. Better than leather."

"How did you know I was going to be wearing gloves again?"

"I didn't," he said.

"So you kept them for our wedding before you proposed?" she said. "Before I even got cured?"

Bobby blinked at her. She was getting swimmy again; he felt fine overall, just a little tired. It had been awhile since he'd been victim to her powers, and he'd never been taken so badly. He figured he'd be fine after another quick nap. But it was even difficult to think about the sweet release of sleep when Rogue was staring at him like that. "Of course," he said.

"Sometimes you do such stupid things that I forget how sweet you really are," she said.

"What was the last stupid thing I did?" he countered.

"Remember the time you accused me of betraying the team, then had Logan beat you into a pulp?"

"You know he's been dying to do that ever since he found out you and I were dating. I was doing the guy a favor."

Rogue laughed sharply. "Some favor."

"Anyway, it was all good. I needed to learn how to deal with pain again. After that, this is nothing."

She rolled her eyes at him, her frown partly sincere and partly teasing. "You're being stupid again."

"Hey, I'm sweet, remember? Gloves? Wedding?"

"You still want to marry me?" she asked, her tone changing instantly from the sugary tease to the scared little girl he hadn't seen in so long. The girl that he loved, and wanted to protect, at all costs. There were so many faces that Rogue wore, each of them more complicated than the last, and sometimes being around her made him feel like he was solving an eternal math equation.

"Yes," he said. "Nothing's changed, Rogue."

"You're calling me Rogue again," she observed.

Bobby winced. The presence of the gloves had automatically cemented the name in his mind. "I'm sorry. I'll call you whatever you want to be called."

She cocked a grin. "How about Mrs. Drake?"

Bobby laughed, found that it hurt a little when he did. "You want to be a Drake? I'm not so sure _I_ want to be a Drake."

"It doesn't matter. I just want to be with you."

He took her hand, squeezed it tightly. "That I can do." In another few short moments, Bobby fell back asleep, wrapped in a white haze. Things had changed yet again, for better or for worse, he couldn't decide, but it didn't really matter, as long as her hand kept holding his.

* * *

It was the largest gathering of mutants since the Brotherhood had still been active. The difference being, of course, that they weren't a terrorist threat. Bobby gazed out over the assembled, comprised of the entire student body, and a few old friends, as well. The front pew was book ended by Bobby's closest blue buddies; Dr. McCoy sat with collected grace at one end, while Kurt Wagner sat at the other, his tail bouncing as he chatted with Jones.

Piotr and Warren were at Bobby's left, the wings popping out of the back of Warren's tux. Despite the obvious presence of mutants in the room, Warren angled himself so that the wings were hidden from the view of the priest. At Bobby's right were Kitty and Ororo, the former of which was exchanging what Bobby could only describe as googly eyes with Warren, so much so that it was all Bobby could do to choke back his laughter.

The laughter died in his throat, however, as the heads in the church turned. Rogue was making her way down the aisle on Logan's arm. Between the puffy sleeves, the long gloves, and the veil, she was covered literally from head to toe. Bobby could've sworn he felt his heart constrict, in the best possible way.

In a rare display of physical affection, Logan kissed the top of Rogue's head before going to sit next to Dr. McCoy. Bobby noticed movement under the webbing of Rogue's veil. "Are you crying?" he asked in a low voice, torn between wanting to be amused or concerned.

"I just never thought that someone like me would ever make it to this day," she whispered.

Bobby laughed, earning him an annoyed look from the priest, who had just begun speaking, and one from Rogue, who probably couldn't figure out why he was laughing. Bobby merely marveled at the idea that someone as wonderful as Rogue could ever think that she wasn't a catch.

He wisely kept his mouth shut after that, but he wasn't paying attention to anything Father Andrews had to say. He was staring at Rogue, unable to get over how beautiful she looked in that admittedly enormous dress, and how lucky he felt that they had made it this far. He had a good feeling rumbling warm deep within him, and he hoped she could see that when she looked at him.

"I do," he said, when the time came, those two words meaning more to him than he'd ever thought possible. A few years ago, what felt like several lifetimes, he'd been an innocent kid, going to public high school, torturing his little brother, playing baseball with his dad on weekends. He had a girlfriend who wouldn't yet let him kiss her in public, and he had a bunch of friends that liked to screw around and laugh at stupid things. He didn't know what he wanted to do with his future, because it seemed so far off.

Now here he was: his parents and brother were gone, and instead replaced by a group of friends that redefined family bonds. He was marrying the woman that he loved. He was an X-Man, a fighter for mutant rights, and for peace. He was a teacher. He had never pictured himself here, and he never imagined that he could be so happy with his life.

Father Andrews told him he could now kiss the bride, and Bobby didn't need a second command. Much to the priest's surprise and confusion, and utter lack thereof as far as the assembled party was concerned, Bobby kissed Rogue right through her veil. It wasn't much, but all the same, it was a kiss that held promise.

Bobby and Rogue turned, hand in hand, about to head down the aisle to the waiting car, when the car itself crashed through the doors of the church. The crowd exploded in sound, half of the congregation staring in abject horror, the other half clamoring over each other in an attempt to get out of the pews and out of the line of fire.

Bobby was the first to act, shooting out an arc of ice to stop the car mid-flight, and suspend it on a frozen pedestal. Regardless of what Bobby had done with it, however, the car was the least of anyone's concern, because in the gaping hole where the ornate church doors had once been, stood a purple-caped Magneto, flanked by his sidekick Pyro.

"All of these mutants, and yet I wasn't invited?" said Magneto with one of his pitying smiles.

The kids who'd managed to escape the pews were scrambling to find an exit, but Pyro clicked his lighter, and in less than the blink of an eye, turned the tiny flicker into bright balls, which he shot to engulf every door he could find.

Father Andrews watched, scared nearly to the point of wetting himself, as the wedding party seemed to transform before his eyes. He'd thought the wedding was a little odd to begin with, judging by the odd amount of blue and furry people. But he certainly hadn't been expecting a known terrorist to show up, and declare some sort of war.

He was trapped in this building, watching as the flames lapped higher at the church that was his home, and was on the verge of thinking that all was lost. Then one of the groomsmen rose ten feet in the air on glorious, angelic wings, as though heralding the end days.

One of the bridesmaids also rose, though she did it without the aid of wings, instead rising on a wind that wasn't there. There was a crash of thunder outside of the church so loud that the windows shuddered in their panes.

The other groomsman, the large one, was turning himself into metal while the groom himself was turning into ice. Neither of them seemed to have eyes in their unnatural faces, and the latter radiated tiny tendrils of vapor. In the front pew, the father of the bride protruded sharp blades from between his fingers. "Okay," he called out, his gruff voice rising to be heard over the panic of the younger people. "Angel and Shadowcat, defense. Get the kids out of here. Iceman, you deal with the fire. Storm, give us some cover."

It was at that moment the priest realized exactly what was going on and who these people were. He was in the presence of the people on the news, the ones that had taken down the infamous Magneto two years ago.

"C'mon, Father, let's go," said the other bridesmaid softly, taking his arm. "Don't be scared." Father Andrews felt the peculiar sensation of weightlessness. But although he felt weightless, he seemed to be sinking, as though there was an excess of gravity. He felt a tingle in his feet, and he realized the girl at his arm was sinking rapidly through the floor, and was taking him along for the ride. He was literally passing right through.

Seconds before his head passed through the floorboards, he heard the father of the bride declare, "Let's do this thing."

The last thing Father Andrews saw was the X-Men charging.

**FIN**


End file.
